How to make a fantasy world not rascist?


Homebrew and House Rules

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So I'm building a homebrew world that is essentially flavored as bronze age grecian mediterranean sea landscape, and I'm building out the surrounding nations as different pathfinder races considering humans don't really exist. (see my other thread "earth humans in a pathfinder fantasy setting" as to why that is)

I'm running into one main problem here, which is if I start assigning certain races as certain real world human analogues, you come off as stereotyping an entire race of people and that is maybe not super cool.

Orcs are the Spartan analogues which I dont think would offend anyone, but if I assign hobgoblins as persians, things start to get a little more offensive. From a design perspective Ratfolk seem to make really good phoenicians, enterprising traders and explorers, especially given their relationship with the egyptian analogues being Catfolk.. but that seems at least a little anti-semitic? I don't know how to even approach assigning central Africans a fantasy race without really digging myself into a trench.

I mean even if you use humans in fantasy worlds you're always verging on this territory. My pathfinder group is generally a bunch of white guys but I'd really like to leave the door open for my other friends to come in and join without thinking I made a world of racist caricatures.

Anyone run into similar issues or have advice on what to do to avoid this? Do I just build my vision, social justice warriors be dammed?


Personally, I've found better success in doing things the other way around: molding a race to adhere to the customs and traits of a real world culture, rather than choosing a race that is already kind of similar.

I had a setting once where there were orcs that were a highly disciplined and honorable warrior culture led by a Shogun, and elves were colourful but mistrusted nomads who lived by a mix of performance, soothsaying, and wit while traveling in caravans.

By taking a race and changing it to fit, you avoid the direct comparison of fantasy stereotypes with real ones. The important part then is to try to portray the culture accurately and respectfully in order to avoid a one-dimensional representation.


Scythia wrote:

Personally, I've found better success in doing things the other way around: molding a race to adhere to the customs and traits of a real world culture, rather than choosing a race that is already kind of similar.

I had a setting once where there were orcs that were a highly disciplined and honorable warrior culture led by a Shogun, and elves were colourful but mistrusted nomads who lived by a mix of performance, soothsaying, and wit while traveling in caravans.

By taking a race and changing it to fit, you avoid the direct comparison of fantasy stereotypes with real ones. The important part then is to try to portray the culture accurately and respectfully in order to avoid a one-dimensional representation.

Yeah I think that's how I would normally do things too, but it's harder to follow that methodology as the world is meant to be a sort of mirror universe of the past through the lens of fantasy/pathfinder. The geography of the world itself is very similar to the mediterranean sea for the same purpose. I have pretty strong story reasons for doing this, it just gets me into some potential muddy waters.


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It's not about being offensive, it's about not being lazy.

Stereotypes are offensive to living human beings because they reduce you and your culture to gimmicks.

But to thine own self, particularly if you want to build a world, what you should strive to do is rediscover the cultures you are depicting to go beyond the typical stereotypes.

For example, Hobgoblins can be Persians, sure... will you represent their embrace of freedom and abolishment of slavery? Will you represent the dualistic religion of light and shadow, good and evil, they held? Will you honor their multiculturalism?

Orcs can be Spartans (even though Hobgoblins fit them best), but make sure you depict both their honor and steadfastness, as well as their penchant for tyranny, their political realism and the fact that, in spite of the racist screed told by the comic and movie 300, they really loved them some good ol' slavery.

You can totally assign any fantasy race to be African. But how much do you know about African cultures during the ancient age? Of the golden empires sprawling through Africa? Of the exiles finding freedom from political strife in the wilderness?

TLDR: Best prevention from racism is learning more about other cultures.


Secret Wizard wrote:

It's not about being offensive, it's about not being lazy.

Stereotypes are offensive to living human beings because they reduce you and your culture to gimmicks.

But to thine own self, particularly if you want to build a world, what you should strive to do is rediscover the cultures you are depicting to go beyond the typical stereotypes.

For example, Hobgoblins can be Persians, sure... will you represent their embrace of freedom and abolishment of slavery? Will you represent the dualistic religion of light and shadow, good and evil, they held? Will you honor their multiculturalism?

Orcs can be Spartans (even though Hobgoblins fit them best), but make sure you depict both their honor and steadfastness, as well as their penchant for tyranny, their political realism and the fact that, in spite of the racist screed told by the comic and movie 300, they really loved them some good ol' slavery.

You can totally assign any fantasy race to be African. But how much do you know about African cultures during the ancient age? Of the golden empires sprawling through Africa? Of the exiles finding freedom from political strife in the wilderness?

TLDR: Best prevention from racism is learning more about other cultures.

All solid points I'll take under advisement. Truthfully, I don't know anything about ancient africa other than it was extremely multicultural, beyond that I only know about nubians and egyptians, which shows how lacking in world history my public school education was (though the possibility exists that I wasn't paying attention.)

That still leaves the problem of portraying the phoenicians as ratfolk. I have a deep respect and understanding of the greatest seafaring traders in the bronze age, who are woefully under represented in history as told by westerners and media. In the same vein I've had pet rats all my life and think of them in a very favorable way... still, pairing the two together, even if it comes from an honest place of understanding seems wrong, because other people are going to bring their understanding to the table and think I'm trying to say something about jews that I'm not.

It's easy to assign an animal like cats to egyptians (and maybe even nubians if I play up the lion aspect of cats) because of their culture being at least marginally cat-centric.. but there's no cultural basis for assigning rats to the phoenicians other than it feeling like it fits. Maybe I just give up on that pairing and go with undine or gillmen given their nature as seafarers? (Though I'd like to keep them in my pocket for an "atlantean" civilization)


Why don't you have the Egyptions be multi-racial, which some scholars believe they were. With the various animorphic traits displayed by the gods of the pantheon you have support for this.

As to the ignominy of Ratfolk. You do remember that Reepacheep got to walk, alive, into the Holy Land in Narnia, Rats are the finders of secrets in Eastern Myth.

It is how you play them.


You could also reimagine each fantasy races culture without regard to real world cultures. I appreciate real world inspiration and it something I use myself, But in this case you could avoid some problems by not making each fantasy race fit a real world culture. Sounds like a big project you're about to undertake. You don't have to get it perfect on the first draft. I find it is best to let the ideas flow, then come back later and revise. Sometimes allowing time away from the project will allow you to be more objective and come up with better revisions.


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Secret Wizard wrote:
For example, Hobgoblins can be Persians, sure... will you represent their embrace of freedom and abolishment of slavery?

Seriously? You have a curious definition of freedom. And a curious definition of abolishment.

OP, here's your real choice:

a) Make a world you like and your players enjoy romping through without obsessing over what everyone else might think.

b) Give up because some perpetually-offended person somewhere will find fault with something you do. And then scream at you and call you names. (When they call you a Nazi, you could mention your modern gaming reinterpretation of our world in which Germans are gnomes.)

Put differently, at the end of your first post, you asked, "Do I just build my vision, social justice warriors be dammed?" Yes, that's exactly what you do. Your world, your game, your hobby, your precious time. How much have you already wasted worrying about this?

And I think it would be hilarious if you went with anti-stereotypes left and right. The beauty-loving, artistic Athenians? Make them the orcs and give orc characters a choice of a +2 racial bonus to Profession (orator), Perform (acting), Knowledge (engineering), or Craft (sculpting).

(OMG, I just stereotyped the Athenians of old!)


For my world I crafted the various races with a historical flavor to each, but I really didn't bother with worrying about stereotypes. Humans and Orcs are closely allied in opposition against the Elven menace. Eves are racists of the highest order, seeing other races as slaves to be used and discarded as they need. The most intellectual and forward thinking race are the Kobolds. Ogres go around spreading the ideas of freedom and democracy.

What I'm saying is build your world then just place the races into the positions they fit into. Being pc is for the masses, not among friends whom understand you. People who publish need to worry about racism, but you shouldn't just for a homebrew game.

Sovereign Court

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It might also help if you avoid the "one country of each" trap. Orcs as Spartans, with all the pluses and minuses of being a Spartan, is fine. And maybe the Huns are orcs, too. And Nubians. You could probably figure out a more cohesive "how they got there" story with more sensical groups, but by assigning a few different countries to each fantasy race, you avoid type-casting as much.

Go the other way, too. Even among humans, most ancient countries were at least somewhat multi-ethnic. Maybe your Celts are a blend elf and centaur tribes. By dropping humans, you've also lost a lot of your typical half- races, but you could come up with some new ones for truly multicultural, blended countries.


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Just going to throw this out there Persians are the Good Guys

But seriously best way to keep it from getting bad is to avoid building cultures with only one race unless there is a good reason to. Then add a liberal helping of multi-dimensional characters whose defining trait is not simply their race/nationality. Finally top it off with an honest look at the both the pros and cons of each culture.


Stick to outlines of each nation. Don't sweat the little stuff. You can work out a lot of the details as the players come to them. That makes them part of the creation process too. Maybe orc chieftains were never masterful dancers until the you and the PCs discovered it when some tense negations take a strange turn. Maybe a day at the market reveals that as a matter of fact, yes - goblins do indeed make delicious jam made from figs and horse jerky.


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Why not drop fantasy races altogether?

Just call them all humans, but give racial abilities and bonuses based on their culture instead. Why does your fantasy world need orcs and elves?


Daw wrote:
Why don't you have the Egyptions be multi-racial, which some scholars believe they were. With the various animorphic traits displayed by the gods of the pantheon you have support for this.

I was definitely thinking along these lines! I was considering variant eagle tengus and perma-shifted crocodile-kin skinwalkers (maybe crocodile flavored lizardfolk) as some of them.

Menarses Esenay wrote:
Put differently, at the end of your first post, you asked, "Do I just build my vision, social justice warriors be dammed?" Yes, that's exactly what you do. Your world, your game, your hobby, your precious time. How much have you already wasted worrying about this?

Yeah I guess you're probably right. I just don't really want an adventure to come off as problematic, you know? And this might be silly, but I have this fantasy that the setting will be cool and unique enough to one day publish a campaign guide for this. Again, just a fantasy but I'd like to keep my options open.

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:
Just going to throw this out there Persians are the Good Guys

This is great and full of information I was not aware of. I will consider thoroughly. Spartans in the game will definitely not be good, but having the persians being generally alright people, while playing up the greek propaganda to the players will likely open up many storytelling doors.

Doomed Hero wrote:

Why not drop fantasy races altogether?

Just call them all humans, but give racial abilities and bonuses based on their culture instead. Why does your fantasy world need orcs and elves?

I have strong storytelling reasons for this, but mainly it's just because I like the Tolkien multiracial world. I still want it to be a grecian setting though. I've loosely renamed all the cities generally just changing a letter or two, (Athens becomes Ather, Thebes becomes Theres, Sparta becomes Sparks and so on) to suspend the realization that the players are in fantasy greece, and to add to the "In a Mirror, Darkly" esque-ness of the world. Because I've also restricted all the players to human, I feel like making all the NPCs human in this fantastical setting would sort of diminish the fantastical element if that makes sense? Maybe it's just personal preference. Theoretically, everyone in this realm is actually "human" they've just taken on magical adaptations from being descendants of gods and heroes. Spartans/Orcs are Ares' descendants for example.

But even if I was just giving cultures ability scores and racial bonuses wouldn't I run into the same minefield? Once you start deciding "this culture has a penalty to intelligence" I figure you're basically saying "well this race of human people is savage so they are dumber than others."


This is one of several reasons why I feel like, if you are going to do the analog approach to world building, it's best to not just stick standard fantasy races into the slots of other human cultures/races, but rather go with humans and develop other races around the creatures in the mythology of the time and place you are trying to emulate.

As an example, if I was doing a classical Greece type setting, I would look at developing Centaurs, minotaurs, satyrs, and nymphs into races. I'd either look into 3rd party folks that already had those races developed for playable races (I know there are playable versions of minotaurs and centaurs out there). Also some races can probably be slotted in with little problem: The different animals races could actually be considered the offspring of the different Egyptian gods, and treated as half divine by folks in not!Egypt.

Alternatively just file the numbers off something existing.

So an android is reflavored as a servitor race of constructs created by Hephaestus, or Hobgoblin stats are used for the spartoi, an artifical race of warriors which sprung magically from dragon's teeth. and so on and so forth. The different animals races could actually be considered the offspring of the different Egyptian gods, and treated as half divine by folks in not!Egypt.

Doing the above will not only result in a setting that feels more natural without clashing elements, but will also seem more original overall.


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ColbyMunro wrote:
well this race is savage so they are dumb.

That, I think, is the source of your problem.

You equate lack of intelligence with savagery. Can an intelligent person not be savage?

Perhaps if you examined your own stereotypes, you would find ways to create races that might be highly intelligent, but still savage. Or races that are the opposite of savage, but still have low intelligence. (BTW, what is the opposite of 'savage' in your definition?)

Or perhaps by 'savage' you mean a different culture.

Pre-Columbian societies in the Americas can give you cultures that you can re-skin as Mediterranean which might fit your need.

What about current-day animal societies? How are they savage? And are any of the strong social rules and cultural elements from those societies useful in creating a less biased world? Termites can give you simple social rules that create complex social structures, for example.


Yeah I suppose I meant savage in the way imperial western cultures would use it to maintain their culture was superior, rather than any particular descriptor of physique or mental acuity. I feel like I was kind of straw-manning rather than expressing my exact beliefs, but the argument holds up that if you start ascribing racial attributes to human cultures you get into racist territory.


Yeah, there's seldom a one-to-one correspondence between a culture and a particular race, especially in the real world.

Most cultures are practiced by multiple races and most races are members of multiple cultures.


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Not all races need be matched up as homogeneous nations, My Hobgoblin empire has human foot and cavalry to supplement their shock troops. The Elvish kings count humans and halflings as vassals. Several dwarven cities muster humans as archers and cavalry. The lurking evil forces have split a number of races into for and against, even the Undead! No Necromancer want to be given orders!


Inner Sea Races can be a useful read for such an enterprise. Remember that you can spread the "bad/brutish" races around a bit and simply have subraces of humans, subraces of Orcs, etc. Pay attention to governance structures and institutions, too. For example, the Athenians were imperialistic slavers (perhaps a brutish race with an unusual amount of INT) living in an illiberal democracy.

The main thing is that you actively work to undermine the racist stereotypes of the "civilized" West against the "uncivilized" barbarians. Real-world racism isn't abstract -- there are concrete associations with skin color (for example) that you want to subvert. Take a desert folk -- the stereotype would Orientalize them, but you could think of them as Finns (since both live in hostile climes) and assign them racial and subracial/cultural characteristics accordingly. The Macedonians might be strong and proud but have weak institutions.

Finally, think of a little alt-history to go with the world. In the real world, nations, cultures, and races blend together as mass migrations and invasions occur. Maybe the Orcish Macedonians adopted some Hobgoblin Athenian traditions as their own and then spread them across their known world, only to see their empire split apart into many smaller polities -- polities which retained some of their influence but were perhaps of different races, etc.


Instead of making stats by race or culture why not make stats for personality types or backgrounds? That way you don't assign Intelligence penalties based on the unfortunate implications of birth or culture, you assign them based on being a peasant with little access to education or being a natural follower who doesn't do a lot of their own thinking. (Every society contains at least a few of every personality type or background, so don't fall into the trap of assigning "common" ones per society: that's the same problem as making stats per culture.)

Obviously this doesn't mix well with a rigid view of races needing specific physiological features. Unfortunately I have no advice in that area, as I personally prefer not to worry about it.

Scarab Sages

SilvercatMoonpaw wrote:

Instead of making stats by race or culture why not make stats for personality types or backgrounds? That way you don't assign Intelligence penalties based on the unfortunate implications of birth or culture, you assign them based on being a peasant with little access to education or being a natural follower who doesn't do a lot of their own thinking. (Every society contains at least a few of every personality type or background, so don't fall into the trap of assigning "common" ones per society: that's the same problem as making stats per culture.)

Obviously this doesn't mix well with a rigid view of races needing specific physiological features. Unfortunately I have no advice in that area, as I personally prefer not to worry about it.

If you think that stat modifiers are discriminating, I am not sure you make things better by using them for personality types or backgrounds instead of races, just saying.


feytharn wrote:
If you think that stat modifiers are discriminating, I am not sure you make things better by using them for personality types or backgrounds instead of races, just saying.

Well there's always letting each player build their "race" (i.e. that bit of their character traits, whether it be race or personality or background) themselves. At least that way if anything's discriminatory its on them.


I picked up on something a little disturbing. Why do you equate Phoenicians with Jews?

In the Bible, they were the Canaanites that the invading Israelites were ordered by their God to slay utterly. Instead the Israelites made treaties with them, and were tempted by them into idol-worship for the rest of their history. Of course, scholars have a different history to offer. According to the font of all knowledge, Wikipedia, the Israelites arose peacefully in the Canaanite hills and had a cultural invasion of the lowland cities. Even so, the Israelite culture was distinct from the Phoenician or "Canaanite" one. It's the classic highlanders vs. lowlanders thing.

So if anyone accuses you of "anti-semitism," you can remind them that Arabs are Semitic, too; in fact, lots of different historical peoples were. And explain that your ratfolk are going to figure in the Bible as the source of wealthy & decadent non-Jewish civilization.

Besides, who says that ratfolk have to be finks or sneaks? I love the comments you've been getting on defining the culture of the races you're picking to suit yourself.

~~~~~

As usual, I learned something in even scanning Wikipedia for making this comment. I had previously equated Phoenicians with Philistines, but it turns out that those were a distinct people and likely Aegian in origin.

If you want to get a reasonably quick lesson in various RL peoples' history before you go too far in putting together your world, Wikipedia genuinely is your friend. :)


As a separate comment, I vote for making the hobgoblins Spartans, too. Spartans are commonly considered to be a Lawful Neutral society, and that's more hobgob than orcish.

The only reason I can see for going with Persians is if you want lots of different goblinoids as different states within the empire.

And you should look up Zoroastrianism before you go too far, too. It's actually the source of an awful lot of Christian theology (introduced in the Epistles rather than the Gospels, generally). As a somewhat separate development, it's the source of a fair amount of D&D cosmology, too.

Given all of this intense thought and generally peaceful rule over a sprawling empire, I'd consider elves for Persians if I were doing my own para-Med fantasy world.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Anyone who accuses you of racism over a simple roleplaying game is not someone worth having at your table. They were clearly already looking for an excuse to label you.

Silver Crusade

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Ravingdork wrote:
Anyone who accuses you of racism over a simple roleplaying game is not someone worth having at your table. They were clearly already looking for an excuse to label you.

Or someone could be calling out something racist.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Rysky wrote:
Ravingdork wrote:
Anyone who accuses you of racism over a simple roleplaying game is not someone worth having at your table. They were clearly already looking for an excuse to label you.
Or someone could be calling out something racist.

Things aren't racist*. Games aren't racist. People are racist.

Did the GM ban you from the table because you were black? Did the GM force you to play an inferior character, because you're a jew, and he believes Jews are, or should always be treated as, inferior? Do your fellow players constantly demean you because of your heritage? Something like that?

No? Then it's probably not racism. It's likely just a hypersensitive (or dishonest) individual who is looking for something to argue about.

I can totally understand not wanting to fall into lazy stereotypes, but this sort of "pregame anti-racism prep" strikes me as a step too far, and a waste of everyone's time.

It's just a game. Racism requires intent, which the GM here is clearly lacking. A game is meant to be fun. Anyone who comes to your table and screams "racist" clearly isn't there to promote fun for anybody, but to start a fight and possibly progress some sort of agenda. Such people are not worth wasting your time on. If ever one does show up at your table, no amount of prep will matter; if they want to target you, they will.

Had the GM really been a racist, he likely wouldn't even invite certain people into his gaming group to begin with, much less waste his time and energy going through all of the trouble to insult and belittle them in his own home. Far too many people today scream [negative label of choice] whenever they encounter something, without first considering intent.

In short, you should be doing game prep for players, not for a$$h0les.

*:
I readily acknowledge that symbols can be highly offensive, but that's not the same thing as saying that they are racist. Only people can be racist.

Silver Crusade

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Yes people are racist, and they can make racist things, even if they don't mean too. Racism does not require intent. I applaud the GM for asking ahead so they don't offend anyone.

You may have dealt with someone who screamed racist at the drop of a hat but most likely something is labeled racist when it's racist.

So saying a game or story or environment (thing MADE by people) can't be racist is utter nonsense.


Everyone needs to post the definition of racism they use so that this doesn't devolve into an argument on the definition of a word. seen that happen to many times. To me for instance, racism is nothing more than an acted upon sense of superiority over another race.

I do agree with raving dork in that you need to intentionally be racist to actually be racist though. It just seems silly that making an off color joke about a stereotype can get me labeled as racist.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Yes people are racist, and they can make offensive things, even if they don't mean too (though this doesn't make them racists). Racism requires intent. I applaud the GM for asking ahead so they don't offend anyone (even though I think it largely a wasted effort).

You may have dealt with someone who screamed racist at the drop of a hat but most likely someone is labeled a racist when someone disagrees with their actions.

A game or story or environment (thing MADE by people) can be offensive, but never racist.

Racism by DEFINITION, only applies to people and their beliefs, never material objects. This will remain true until someone develops an inherently racist artificial intelligence of some sort.

Definition of racism:

1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to dominate others or that a particular racial group is inferior to the others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.


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derpdidruid wrote:


I do agree with raving dork in that you need to intentionally be racist to actually be racist though.

I think this statement can be empirically disproven. Well, not the fact that you agree, obviously. But unconscious and unintentional racism is a well-established thing. You might think that you are completely race-blind, but it may still show up in your behavior.

Silver Crusade

Ravingdork wrote:

Yes people are racist, and they can make offensive things, even if they don't mean too (though this doesn't make them racists). Racism requires intent. I applaud the GM for asking ahead so they don't offend anyone (even though I think it largely a wasted effort).

You may have dealt with someone who screamed racist at the drop of a hat but most likely someone is labeled a racist when someone disagrees with their actions.

A game or story or environment (thing MADE by people) can be offensive, but never racist.

Racism by DEFINITION, only applies to people and their beliefs, never material objects. This will remain true until someone develops an inherently racist artificial intelligence of some sort.

** spoiler omitted **

Being pedantic doesn't make things not racist or offensive. And nohting in those definitions precluded things from being racist.


I don't know if there is a way to ping or message users on this forum, but I have previously seen the user Mikaze discuss the issue of racism in fantasy stories/gaming with a great deal of nuance. They might have something to offer on this if there's a way to contact them.


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This series of articles might help. Or it might be more of what you already know, OP.

Personally the best part is at the beginning where the author says people are going to fail in the process and that's okay. For some people that's a no-brainer. For someone like me we actually have to be told that directly.


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Rant alert:
Racism is having expectations about someone based on their race. And expectations aren't conscious. They filter into a story through cracks & crannies in your design process, unless you consciously give the story a good once-over. It's the air every single human raised in the US breathes, regardless of what race we have. At least, I contend that minorities are racists, too, and not just towards other minorities. Having expectations of a white person based on the color of their skin is racism, too.

The first and easiest expectation to have is that people of a different race aren't around. Just as it's easy to say, "I'm not sexist," and still design a society where all of the important people are male -- because men tend to take over in our cultural expectations. Similarly, white people tend to write stories about science-fiction futures or fantasy worlds where everyone is white. It was racism when Lucas gave all of the good roles in Star Wars: A New Hope to whites, and had to scrape together something decent for a black man in The Empire Strikes Back. (I still hate it that Lando starts out a minor villain, and is backgrounded as a hero.) I honor Paizo for attempting a world where humans of different races can be found, but all so naturally, most of their material focuses on the places where Caucasian (err, Taldan) people live.

{EtA: But then you go to the next step, and look at someone and assume you know something about them because you can see their race.} When I dated a black man many, many moons ago, I as a white woman had to acknowledge my racism. I didn't dump him, no, but I did have to confront inner expectations & feelings about him based solely on his race. I didn't act on my racism, I didn't tell him he was inferior to me, I didn't want to be racist. I just was. And am. In fact, over the years since we did break up (for other reasons), I know I've become more racist. I deplore it, but the best I can do is to acknowledge it and try to avoid pandering to it in my fantasy. And to commend people who genuinely want to avoid incorporating theirs into a campaign world.


TL;DR Worrying about whether a campaign world incorporates racism is a perfectly reasonable step to take when the designer grew up in our saturated-with-racism world.

The next step for the OP, therefore, is to make all of these races & cultures multi-faceted; to find ways that they're each admirable and other ways where they're regrettable. The thing is, D&D gets away without taking that next step by changing the race of their "monsters." Monsters are ugly and nasty and irredeemable, donja know? Worth killing at first sight. Racism is HUGE here in D&D-land.

In this new world, the OP's world, they should have good points. And there sure should be some goblin babies to be encountered.

Silver Crusade

Godferret wrote:
I don't know if there is a way to ping or message users on this forum, but I have previously seen the user Mikaze discuss the issue of racism in fantasy stories/gaming with a great deal of nuance. They might have something to offer on this if there's a way to contact them.

You can go to a person's individual pager in order to send them a private message ^w^

Unfortunately Mikaze (who is beyond AWESOME) has not been on the boards for some time :(


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I completely disagree with any notion or definition that automatically classifies every single human being as being inherently racist, bitter lily. Such "definitions" do nothing good for anybody, and only serve to divide people further, allowing dishonest, evil people to label and disgrace anyone at anytime for any reason. No, I will never subscribe to that.

I'm going to leave it at that. Continuing to bicker about what is or is not racism does nothing for the OP or his perceived problem.


Ravingdork wrote:
I completely disagree with any notion or definition that automatically classifies every single human being as being inherently racist, bitter lily, but I'm going to leave it at that. Continuing to bicker about what is or is not racism does nothing for the OP or his perceived problem.

Not every human being, just everyone in my society. And it DOES do something for the OP; it acknowledges that he's right to ask. It doesn't tell him to shut up now and go away and blame anyone who objects to the world he's creating.

{I apologize. I got angry, and I shouldn't have. Should I just delete this comment?}


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Racism is not about intention at all, because racism is negative. People only do stuff for positive reasons, as selfish or deluded as they may be.

J. R. R. Tolkien based his dwarves on Jews, explicitly. But his depiction intended to be a celebration of Jewish culture and heritage.

While there are certainly too many merits for his work and his intention, it's hard to argue that dwarves being greedy gold diggers, in spite of their bravery and warm heartenedness, is not a racist stereotype.

We can forgive the misstep because of his intention and the cultural mores of his time, But it doesn't cease to be a harming depiction.

And no, I'm not saying that picturing a single character in a negative light means the author thinks the same of everyone of that race (I'd think much more of The merchant of Venice if Shylock's daughter didn't convert to Christianity), but it's another thing to embed racial stereotypes to a whole race.


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Rysky wrote:
Godferret wrote:
I don't know if there is a way to ping or message users on this forum, but I have previously seen the user Mikaze discuss the issue of racism in fantasy stories/gaming with a great deal of nuance. They might have something to offer on this if there's a way to contact them.

You can go to a person's individual pager in order to send them a private message ^w^

Unfortunately Mikaze (who is beyond AWESOME) has not been on the boards for some time :(

Thank you for that information, I will keep it in mind in the future. That's a shame about Mikaze, I definitely enjoyed their posts.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
bitter lily wrote:
...it DOES do something for the OP; it acknowledges that he's right to ask. It doesn't tell him to shut up now and go away and blame anyone who objects to the world he's creating.

There's certainly nothing wrong with him asking, true. I just don't think it will do him all that much good. Also, to be clear, no one told him to "shut up and blame others." I was merely warning him that his efforts might well be wasted on certain people. Should that ever happen, I encouraged him not to waste any more time on them.


Start and end by not being racist yourself. That's where all the real work is, anyway. You're not going to ever make a +2/-2 to various stats, racial alignment tendencies, entire sentient races of kill-them-on-sight-and-be-a-hero setting into a post-racial utopia none can ever find fault with.

Point to the message. Self-actualization. It's not that (insert race)
are baby-eating vermin that (other race) has been at war with for generations, it's that our party has one of each, and they get along, and are even grudging friends.


I think part of the problem coming up, at least in the "making 'monster' races into culture" thing, is that there's conditioning going around saying "cultures" need to be monolithic in their appearance. It's one of those "Well that's how it was in history" things that ignores that we don't have to give in to "history" in a fictional context (also ignores that history was never that clean and simple). There don't need to be "Persian hobgoblins" and "Spartan orcs": there could just be "Persians" and "Spartans" and "race" is an afterthought because that's just how the world's developed.


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Ravingdork wrote:
bitter lily wrote:
...it DOES do something for the OP; it acknowledges that he's right to ask. It doesn't tell him to shut up now and go away and blame anyone who objects to the world he's creating.
There's certainly nothing wrong with him asking, true. I just don't think it will do him all that much good. Also, to be clear, no one told him to "shut up and blame others." I was merely warning him that his efforts might well be wasted on certain people. Should that ever happen, I encouraged him not to waste any more time on them.

Of course, and you should also not waste time with people who too easily dismiss racism as well.


Who are you playing with?

If friends, does it even matter? If you don't publish your world publicly you shouldn't be afraid of offending anyone. Which is really what offensive things are, it's not an inherent quality to an act, but relative to those exposed to it. You can perform the vilest act imaginable, but if your sole witness is a rat, odds are no one will be offended...


Goblin_Priest wrote:

Who are you playing with?

If friends, does it even matter? If you don't publish your world publicly you shouldn't be afraid of offending anyone. Which is really what offensive things are, it's not an inherent quality to an act, but relative to those exposed to it. You can perform the vilest act imaginable, but if your sole witness is a rat, odds are no one will be offended...

spotted the CN character


Please don't take this the wrong way, but maybe the discussion about the definition of racism, should be confined to another thread.

The OP ask for advice and suggestions for how, he could make his particular vision for a homebrew world, as open and inviting as possible, so I kind of think that the discussion should return to that track and leave the overarching question of when, how, if a work can be considered to be racist, to a time where there actually is enough of a finished "world" to criticize and possibly correct?

To the OP:

My advice would be, make a rough draft of what you already have in mind, then pick one nation to focus on (say the
Phoenician Ratfolk). Then slowly develop every tier of that society, with a host of questions (already here you can include your players as they can give invaluable input and ideas) like is the society only made up of Ratfolk?, if not are they the majority or minority? what other cultures are a part of the society? how do cultures interact in the society? Hows the society governed? Do culture divides follow divides in professions or labor? and so on.

When you have somewhat of a grasp, on how the society functions internally, then you turn to one of its neighboring societies and do the same thing, for that society, except this time you also ask your self, how that society would develop with the Ratfolks as a neighbor. Is the to societies relation ship cordial or hostile? Do they share cultures? Do they share beliefs? and so on.

Keep doing this process one society at a time, until you feel all the societies you need are fleshed out, commit all this to paper (or digital medium) and make a condensed version as a kind of flow chart.

Present at the very least the flow chart version, to your players, for further input, suggestions, revisions and the like.


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Secret Wizard wrote:

Racism is not about intention at all, because racism is negative. People only do stuff for positive reasons, as selfish or deluded as they may be.

J. R. R. Tolkien based his dwarves on Jews, explicitly. But his depiction intended to be a celebration of Jewish culture and heritage.

While there are certainly too many merits for his work and his intention, it's hard to argue that dwarves being greedy gold diggers, in spite of their bravery and warm heartenedness, is not a racist stereotype.

We can forgive the misstep because of his intention and the cultural mores of his time, But it doesn't cease to be a harming depiction.

And no, I'm not saying that picturing a single character in a negative light means the author thinks the same of everyone of that race (I'd think much more of The merchant of Venice if Shylock's daughter didn't convert to Christianity), but it's another thing to embed racial stereotypes to a whole race.

I find these arguments absurd. It's the first time I hear dwarves compared to Jews... but then again, in fantasy I guess anything even remotely greedy is automatically antisemetic. Absurd. It takes more than greed to make something "jew like", and honestly I find the mere idea of linking greed to jewery more antisemetic than the creation of greedy fantasy races themselves. Most dwarf stereotypes are completely incompatible with most jewish stereotypes anyways. I can't even fathom the thought that modern dwarf depictions can in any way harm jews. May as well say orc portrayals are islamophobic. Why? Who knows, but I'm sure someone could find some likeness to justify such a claim...


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

One good way to ensure that you are depicting each race/culture in your campaign fairly is to give some thought as to how typical members of that race/culture view themselves. Any opinion that people in a particular group are unlikely to hold about themselves has a good chance of being an excessive stereotype.

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