Fantastic Racism

[GalacticAxekick]

While brown-skinned races (humans, elves, dwarves, etc) can be culturally and ideologically diverse, it's pretty standard in Tolkien-influenced fantasy for green-skinned races (orcs, goblins etc) to stupid, barbaric and unambiguously evil. I'm not a fan of this, firstly because it's ridiculous to me that a species smart enough to produce weapons/tools and raise armies/nations would be terribly dimwitted or ideologically simple, secondly because stereotyping an entire class of people is never interesting nor appealing.

So here's my alternative.

Greenskinned races aren't individualistic. They have no intuitive understanding of property or borders, and they do not consider someone's past/future selves to be the same person as their present self. And while this does not predispose them to good or evil, law or chaos, it does put them at odds with the values of brownskinned races, which leads to a great deal of animosity between the two families.

For instance, say a dwarf and an orc brawl in a tavern. When they meet again, the dwarf is quite likely to hold a grudge against orc. At best, the dwarf will be cautious of her. At worst, the dwarf may attack her. The orc, on the other hand, remembers the brawl as if it had been between two strangers. She holds neither herself, nor the dwarf responsible, and might actually want to bond over the shared memory. At best she might be courteous, only to be turned down. At worst, she might expect courtesy from her old adversary, who might take offense. This sort of thing gives orcs a reputation for being heartless and unrepentant.

As another example, suppose a nomadic tribe of goblins journey through elven woods. Goblins do not intuitively understand property, and so they might quarry the woods clean if they see fit. At best, they will be met with hospitable elves, whose homes they will undoubtedly "rob" and "occupy" under the impression that they are public. At worst, they will be fought back by territorial elves, who they will interpret as merely bloodthirsty, while the elves themselves see the goblins as greedy and invasive.

It's misunderstandings like these that spur wars and conflicts between the groups. Were one group willing to listen to and accommodate the other, there'd be few problems.

[Max_Killjoy]

What if goblins are from far away, and have farms and cities and so on.. and the only goblins seen in the local region are nomadic raiders.

Picture the situation with the Huns and then the Mongols, and how easy it would have been for the Europeans of those times to associate "Asian" features with chaos and wickedness and destruction.

[GalacticAxekick]

What if goblins are from far away, and have farms and cities and so on.. and the only goblins seen in the local region are nomadic raiders.

Picture the situation with the Huns and then the Mongols, and how easy it would have been for the Europeans of those times to associate "Asian" features with chaos and wickedness and destruction.

Viable! But not something I'd include in any of my settings, for a couple reasons.

For one, the end result is the same: all the local goblins and orcs are (chaotic?) evil raiders, unworthy of player sympathy. That's uninteresting, for the sake of play. I'd much rather have a moment where the players fire on goblins on sight, only to realize those were innocents, and that they've been seeing the world from a prejudiced angle. I'd much rather have strained negotiations between the players and their ex-adversaries. I'd much rather have good and lawful green skins be as common as good and lawful brown skins.

Second, it's unrealistic that even among nomadic raiders, everyone is chaotic evil. A society as a whole can wage horrible wars while having an ideologically diverse population. I honestly couldn't say the Huns and Mongols were any more "chaotic, wicked and destructive" than the Europeans they met.

Third, I really do want green-skinned races to be fundamentally different from brown-skinned races. I like the idea of asymmetrical equality, where different demographics have wildly different abilities, perspectives and needs, but all deserve the same respect. I think it's an important theme in this day and age, and that it's just a lot more fun to have that cultural/biological diversity in a setting than to not.

[AtlasSniperman]

I really like this green-brown morality you've got going here. So I'm going to chime in and try and clear this up real quick :D

Viable! But not something I'd include in any of my settings, for a couple reasons.

You don't have to. Though this is your brainchild so we aren't trying to tell you you can't do it that way :)

For one, the end result is the same: all the local goblins and orcs are (chaotic?) evil raiders, unworthy of player sympathy. That's uninteresting, for the sake of play. I'd much rather have a moment where the players fire on goblins on sight, only to realize those were innocents, and that they've been seeing the world from a prejudiced angle. I want good and lawful green skins to be as common as good and lawful brown skins.

No. Lets start by imagining two areas; nation G and nation B. The players are inhabitants of nation B, and are living fairly close to nation G. However the PC's and all the people of nation B consider nation G to be a wild area. Adventurers go into nation G's area and attack nomads living there, and adventurers or nomads from nation G come to nation B in retaliation(and vice versa). It's a war going on but the people in nation B just think they're being attacked by crude evil creatures.

Your players can go into nation G and find a town that at first glance looks like any you'd see in nation B, and its infested with goblins. So they go through and slaughter goblins, finding halfling sized tools and even a goblin mocking civilisation by prancing around dressed as a blacksmith. Some goblins are infesting a house! Kill them! look for the bodies of the people who lived there, find Goblin babies in a goblin crib... Realization dawns.

Second, it's unrealistic that even among nomadic raiders, everyone is chaotic evil. A society as a whole can wage horrible wars while having an ideologically diverse population. I honestly couldn't say the Huns and Mongols were any more "chaotic, wicked and destructive" than the Europeans they met.

Exactly. I intend to make a post called "Subjective Objective Morality and how it suits Strict fantasy" over in the Roleplaying subforum soon. Basically, you can be Lawful and see another lawful group as Chaotic. You can be Good and see another Good group as Evil. In my above example, both groups are at war, but see the other as a barbaric infestation.

Third, I really do want green-skinned races to be fundamentally different from brown-skinned races. I like the idea of asymmetrical equality, where different demographics have wildly different abilities, perspectives and needs, but all deserve the same respect. I think it's an important theme in this day and age, and that it's just a lot more fun to have that variety in a setting.

You can do that, and in fact a lack of empathy and the ability to understand the other worldview can slot straight into Subjective Objective Morality and the ideas of fantasy racism

[LudicSavant]

One possible contributor to why, say, elves and goblins don't get along: lifespans.

An elf lives for what, 60 goblin generations? Think of how quickly we switched from "concentration camps" to "close allies" with Japan after World War 2, it only took a couple of generations. But that doesn't work with elves. Every elf family remembers when a goblin killed their friend or loved one... even if the goblins can't even remember when the last time a goblin bothered an elf was. These guys can keep grudges for a millenium because there are still elves that remember what happened.

Even if goblins are so peaceful they only have a war every like 10 generations... the elf is potentially living through 6 wars there. From their perspective, it's an ongoing struggle. So here we have the elves, who live through half a dozen goblin wars in their lifetime and are always preparing for the next one they expect they'll have to fight during their lifetime... while the goblins are over here having no idea why the elves are so hostile towards them. After all, no goblin they know ever wronged an elf. That's a potential recipe for ill-conceived hatred on both sides.

The same could be said for other races as well (such as long lived dwarves or short-lived orcs).


Humans too.

[GalacticAxekick]

One possible contributor to why, say, elves and goblins don't get along: lifespans.

[...]

The same could be said for other races as well (such as long lived dwarves or short-lived orcs). Humans too.

The 5e PHB comments that a dwarves are extremely slow to trust: so much so that humans live and die before they earn dwarven trust. Human friends of dwarves are usually the children or grandchildren of human allies of dwarves, carrying their reputation and surname.

"I know Ibtihal Yakal for 80 years. She was alright. She's passed now, but her son Yasin is so like her. I consider the Yakals a friend."

So your concept is very in line with the source material, plausible and super interesting! I love it! And there's the added trouble that! Humans inherit debts along with properties. The human son of an elf-killer might feel some compulsion to make things right with the elves. But greenskins have no concept or property, and thus no concept of debt. The orc son of an elf-killer wouldn't feel any pressure to set things right.

[Frozen_Feet]

@LudicSavant: where is that comic panel from?

[LudicSavant]

@LudicSavant: where is that comic panel from?

This thing:

[Grey Watcher]

To me, at least , boiling it down to a single issue (like conflicting models and concepts of ownership) still feels like oversimplification: you've removed the arbitrary moral judgement (laudible, don't get me wrong), but it still boils what should be a complex set of interactions (that provide many jumping off points for adventures!) to opposite sides of a single, arbitrary coin. (Plus, I dunno, the concept of ownership ine in particular feels pretty trite.)

That said, the lifespan thing I really like, especially for being something extrapolated from what's given, rather than something being added on. Plus, it's asymmetrical, which brings up all sorts of possibilities.

[GalacticAxekick]

To me, at least , boiling it down to a single issue (like conflicting models and concepts of ownership) still feels like oversimplification: you've removed the arbitrary moral judgement (laudible, don't get me wrong), but it still boils what should be a complex set of interactions (that provide many jumping off points for adventures!) to opposite sides of a single, arbitrary coin. (Plus, I dunno, the concept of ownership ine in particular feels pretty trite.) That said, the lifespan thing I really like, especially for being something extrapolated from what's given, rather than something being added on. Plus, it's asymmetrical, which brings up all sorts of possibilities.

Well it's more than concepts of ownership. It's concepts of identity and abstraction in general. Green-skinned races don't intuit property or borders because those are imaginary concepts: a rule is only as real as the blade enforcing it. And they don't consider their current selves the same as their past selves because, physically and mentally, they aren't their past selves. They cannot change what their past selves do. They are only responsible for their current actions.

It's also in line with source material! D&D Orcs and Goblins especially are described as sleeping in heaps, sharing weapons and wares and pillaging indiscriminately, which is what gave me the idea that they don't understand property or territory. Stereotypical hulk speak—"Gal'Ax fought many wars" instead of "I fought many wars"—gave me the idea that orcs don't consider their past and future selves the same as their current self, which I expanded to include no senses of guilt or pride for anything but their current activity (thus their apparent remorselessness, and unpredictability).

Short lifespan explains the prejudice elves and dwarves feel against them, but doesn't explain why humans are so anti-green, or why elves and dwarves aren't anti-human.

Also, the concept that greenskins lack individualism and abstraction also explains their status as "barbarians"! A lack of job specialization forces societies to stay small and nomadic, because until someone specializes as a farmer, there are no food surpluses to feed dedicated soldiers/bureaucrats/inventors/artisans. As much as the lack of grudges/debts/properties among greenskins helps prevent infighting, it prevents them from developing specialists and holds them back technologically.

Again, short lifespan doesn't quite explain slow technological progress, specially since humans live only slightly longer than greenskins.

I adore the lifespan concept as a source of tension between long-lived and short-lived races, but I don't think it's sufficient to describe brown-green tensions.

[raygun goth]

I don't have a whole lot to add to this discussion - but I can tell you why orcs are green!

Tolkein described his orcs as "sallow" and "black-skinned." He described them as being dark, possibly Mongoloid, foreign beings from lands to the east and the south. For a while, at least, role-playing games that included them tended to use this description as well - they were black and dark, some even pushing into grayscale. When color photography started being a thing, though, Games Workshop realized that black and gray painted miniatures are not particularly photogenic, so on one pass, they made them green (also so they'd stick out as "new and different" from all the other orcs in the market). Later, it was written in as the orcs having actual clorophyll in their skin.

In The Orcs of Thar, orcs are described as having a spectrum from green to yellow - but they're also associated with primitive Asiatic cultures in that book, in addition to extremely stereotypical depictions of Asiatic peoples co-opted to make the orcs "different." We're talking buck teeth, yellow skin, wispy moustaches, fur hats, the inability to differentiate between L and R sounds, the whole nine yards.

[Skitcher]

I think you may be overthinking it, to be honest. Real-world racism is usually fairly shallow and based on one of three things: conflict of land, conflict of taboos, or conflict of trade. For "realistic" racism, consider more superficial or even false rationalizations rather than more complex, derivative, or ultimately true justifications.
In the real world, tribal warfare in ancient Egypt was often started over the conflict of sacred/taboo animals relative to the patron god of the tribe. For example, followers of Amon, who held the ram as a sacred animal, would sacrifice a jackal and eat it. The followers of Anubis would be outraged and sacrifice a ram for retribution. The war would start, but the root was either a desire to spark conflict to justify land acquisition, or simple insensitivity to the other.
There may be virtually no difference between your duergar and your dwarves. They may be identical in almost every way. A thousand years ago, the dwarves were trading with a big human nation. The dwarves were the humans' sole source of weapons and armor. The duergar hit it big with an overabundance of iron, and began selling equivalent armor and weapons to the humans for cheaper. The dwarves began writing a narrative of horrible things about the duergar, purely out of commercial resentment. They may start rumors that duergar eat humans, that duergar have massive sacrifices to blood-thirsty gods. An elven nation near the duergar lands may believe them and become scared. They may launch a pre-emptive strike against the duergar. The human nation was preparing for war with another human nation, and was relying on a big shipment of weapons and armor from the duergar. The shipment never came because of the elves' attack, the humans think that they are betrayed because the dwarves come through for them with goods, and tell them that the untrustworthy duergar must have made a deal with the other nation. The humans launch attacks against the duergar for revenge. The duergar now have reason to hate elves, humans, and the dwarves and vice versa. All because the duergar started selling cheap.
It can start as a trade advantage, eating taboo animals, taboo sex practices like polygamy or homosexuality, could be an unaccommodating religion or simply differences in culture or appearance. It could be a greedy desire to have the other's land. It could even literally be color. I'm just saying that if your goal is an allegory for racism in the real world, keep the real reasons for racism shallow and self-centered, and the rationalizations horrible and remorseless. That way it will mimic real-world racism and the ideals you are trying to portray. Use the story as a way to reveal the origins piece by piece until the PCs put it together.

[GalacticAxekick]

I think you may be overthinking it, to be honest. Real-world racism is usually fairly shallow and based on one of three things: conflict of land, conflict of taboos, or conflict of trade. For "realistic" racism, consider more superficial or even false rationalizations rather than more complex, derivative, or ultimately true justifications.

I understand this.

I never said "Characters in D&D worlds are racist for shallow reasons and that's unrealistic". I'm saying "Green-skinned races in D&D source are LEGITIMATELY evil and barbaric, deserving of discrimination, and I'd rather depict them in a more nuanced way while keeping what makes them orcs/goblins."

[Skitcher]

I understand this.

I never said "Characters in D&D worlds are racist for shallow reasons and that's unrealistic". I'm saying "Green-skinned races in D&D source are LEGITIMATELY evil and barbaric, deserving of discrimination, and I'd rather depict them in a more nuanced way while keeping what makes them orcs/goblins."

No, I get that, I'm saying that sometimes they SHOULD be racist for shallow reasons because that is realistic. They can be evil to the PCs for these reasons alone and as unreasonable as people IRL. That's all. I don't think we are so much at odds, you can be nuanced but sometimes you don't need to be.

[GalacticAxekick]

No, I get that, I'm saying that sometimes they SHOULD be racist for shallow reasons because that is realistic. They can be evil to the PCs for these reasons alone and as unreasonable as people IRL. That's all. I don't think we are so much at odds, you can be nuanced but sometimes you don't need to be.

Maybe something to clarify is that this is less an allegory for racism (where everything is superficial) and more an allegory for prejudice in general (such as xenophobia, sexism, ableism) where the abilities and practices of the two demographics can be legitimately different. D&D races lend themselves to this because they're more species than ethnicities. They are legitimately, fundamentally different, and the allegory has to work accordingly.

If we were dealing with IRL racism or its analog, we'd want to say "Wait, despite these superficial differences, we're quite the same! I will no longer have special expectations of your people."

But dealing with prejudice between legitimately different groups, you do need special expectations. You need to respect the unique practices foreigners, biological differences between sexes and different abilities of others. If all the conflict between the PCs and green-skins is because They Don't Look Like Us, I feel like we're missing out on an allegory, and throwing a wealth of unique behaviors and traits from the source material away.

[ES Curse]

Eh, writing out intelligent greenskins is hard. I'll settle for dinosaur-riding halflings and wood elf raiders.

[LudicSavant]

Green-skinned races in D&D source are LEGITIMATELY evil and barbaric, deserving of discrimination

This sentence makes my spine tingle. You probably didn't mean it quite this way, but... nothing can be deserving of discrimination. In the context of a topic about racism and prejudice (fantastic or otherwise), discrimination means to judge something for reasons other than its actual individual merit.

Spoiler

Show

the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.
"victims of racial discrimination"
synonyms: prejudice, bias, bigotry, intolerance, narrow-mindedness, unfairness, inequity, favoritism, one-sidedness, partisanship;

An individual need not be actually harmed in order to be discriminated against. They just need to be treated worse than others for some arbitrary reason.

discrimination is treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing is perceived to belong to rather than on individual merit.

the practice of unfairly treating a person or group of people differently from other people

Also it's worth noting that (at least in 3.5e D&D), orcs aren't even "legitimately evil as an entire race" in the Monster Manual. They're defined as "often" Chaotic Evil, which is defined in the Monster Manual as meaning that something like 40% of them are that alignment. That's it. It's actually the least stringent alignment tendency defined in the Monster Manual.

Alignment: This line in a monster entry gives the alignment that the creature is most likely to have. Every entry includes a qualifier that indicates how broadly that alignment applies to all monsters of that kind.

Always: The creature is born with the indicated alignment. The creature may have a hereditary predisposition to the alignment or come from a plane that predetermines it. It is possible for individuals to change alignment, but such individuals are either unique or rare exceptions.

Usually: The majority (more than 50%) of these creatures have the given alignment. This may be due to strong cultural influences, or it may be a legacy of the creatures’ origin. For example, most elves inherited their chaotic good alignment from their creator, the deity Corellon Larethian.

Often: The creature tends toward the given alignment, either by nature or nurture, but not strongly. A plurality (40–50%) of individuals have the given alignment, but exceptions are common.

[GalacticAxekick]

This sentence makes my spine tingle. You probably didn't mean it quite this way, but... nothing can be deserving of discrimination. In the context of a topic about racism and prejudice (fantastic or otherwise), discrimination means to judge something for reasons other than its actual individual merit.

Noted! Pardon me for the poor choice of words! You probably understood, but I meant that as legitimate monsters, greenskins (or 5e greenskins at least) deserve the fear and hostility paid to them.

Also it's worth noting that (at least in 3.5e D&D), orcs aren't even "legitimately evil as an entire race" in the Monster Manual. They're defined as "often" Chaotic Evil, which is defined in the Monster Manual as meaning that something like 40% of them are that alignment. That's it. It's actually the least stringent alignment tendency defined in the Monster Manual.

Ah! My background is in 5e, where they are simply and uniformly chaotic evil. The flavour text isn't flattering either:

Tribes like Plagues. Orcs gather in tribes that exert their dominance and satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them. After savaging a settlement, orcs pick it clean of wealth and items usable in their own lands. They set the remains ofvillages and camps ablaze, then retreat whence they came, their bloodlust satisfied

[LudicSavant]

This post by Rich Burlew basically sums up how I feel about 5e's attitude towards Monster Manual alignments.

The flavour text isn't flattering either:

Tribes like Plagues. Orcs gather in tribes that exert their dominance and satisfy their bloodlust by plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds, and slaying any humanoids that stand against them. After savaging a settlement, orcs pick it clean of wealth and items usable in their own lands. They set the remains of villages and camps ablaze, then retreat whence they came, their bloodlust satisfied

Let's try some find-and-replace.

Humans, throughout history, have engaged in the practice of... plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds (and then some), and slaying any humanoids that stand against them. They are known to, after savaging a settlement, pick it clean of wealth and items usable in their own lands, set the remains of the villages ablaze, and then retreat to whence they came.

[Max_Killjoy]

Let's try some find-and-replace.

Humans, throughout history, have engaged in the practice of... plundering villages, devouring or driving off roaming herds (and then some), and slaying any humanoids that stand against them. They are known to, after savaging a settlement, pick it clean of wealth and items usable in their own lands, set the remains of the villages ablaze, and then retreat to whence they came.

Indeed. The sort of orcs described in the non-replaced version of this section are just a caricature of groups of humans who have at various places and times done the same thing. An unflattering mirror, as it were.

[Spiryt]

It's misunderstandings like these that spur wars and conflicts between the groups. Were one group willing to listen to and accommodate the other, there'd be few problems.

There's always question of capability to be 'willing to listen and accommodate'.

Members of society we may call 'race' are governed by what the society had taught them, usually in subconscious way.

In your second example it's extremely possible that 'nomadic goblins' would understand 'bloodthirsty' as quite natural part of life -as mentioned, just by analogy to actual nomadic steppe cultures.

Genghis Khan was appealed by blood-thirst and brutality only when it was occurring by breaking already established truces, subservience and dominance bonds etc.

Mostly where any warrior or person in general was plotting against their khan, or betraying him,

To limited extent when winner was needlessly cruel towards the loser.

But 'needlessly' was quite broad term, usually those who were subservient enough were just allowed to live. If they could live trough being driven in front of Mongolian army to fill up the moat.


In this light, those 5th edition Orcs, aren't in any way unrealistic compared to many actual, existing, people of the steppe at all.
Whether Monoglian , Turkish or Indoeuropean, they were treating people, particularly settled, agricultural people as resource as any other.

So you can have sentient beings being obviously capable of truces, love, friendship etc. because those are obvious components of any society, but behaving in such:

They set the remains of villages and camps ablaze, then retreat whence they came, their bloodlust satisfied

way towards the strangers.

Men, killed, women and children taken, fields and towns turned into pasture for unnumbered horses, and so on.

I'm not a fan of this, firstly because it's ridiculous to me that a species smart enough to produce weapons/tools and raise armies/nations would be terribly dimwitted or ideologically simple, secondly because stereotyping an entire class of people is never interesting nor appealing.

And without being in any way 'ideologically simple' or 'dimwitted', but in fact using elaborate politics, administration tactic, logistics, and so on.

[Anderlith]

So instead of saying one race is born evil by human standards, you instead say they are born as inherent socialists & thats why they are bad..? Sure adding in the loss of past & present identity adds a bit of mercurity to the whole thing but i dont like the political overtones. Its like Sword of Truth. Socialism bad, free market good. Also it throws long term logistics out of the water. Why should i store food for later? Why should i exercise? Why do anything but eat & mate?

Instead approach it from a third angle. Your traditional races long ago overthrew a race that was just as advanced as them, if not better, for resouces, political reasons, etc. They were cast out of their lands into the Wilderness, perhaps add in a curse or such to explain their skin color. As pariah they lost most of their culture & beliefs. What started as them defending themselves from repeated attacks has turned into a way of life. The greenskins attack the traditional races because they have long seen them as a threat & as their boogeyman. The traditional races attack the greenskins because they keep attacking their people, & becase its been that way for so long its not taboo.

[GalacticAxekick]

So instead of saying one race is born evil by human standards, you instead say they are born as inherent socialists & thats why they are bad..?

Well, no. For one, they aren't inherently socialist. They have no intuitive concept of property or territory (among other abstractions), but that doesn't mean they necessarily split things evenly amongst one another. They run the gamut from what you might call socialism (equal-outcome rights: everyone is owed an equal share) to fascism (might makes right: no one is owed anything and the strong/cunning control most everything).

Moreover, this isn't "why they're bad". It's why they're stereotyped the way they are by brownskinned races. The whole point is that they aren't any worse than the other races. The green and brown perspectives are equally valid.

Sure adding in the loss of past & present identity adds a bit of mercurity to the whole thing but i dont like the political overtones. Its like Sword of Truth. Socialism bad, free market good. Also it throws long term logistics out of the water. Why should i store food for later? Why should i exercise? Why do anything but eat & mate?

The dissociation of past and present self was more with respect to responsibility: they don't take pride in their past successes or find guilt in their past failures, because those were preformed a physically and mentally different creature. They find guilt and pride in the present and feel very strongly about how things are currently being managed. They look at their past the same way the look at the pasts of others: as examples to learn from, rather than trends to identify with.

An orc or goblin understands that it can later fetch food it stored, of course.

Instead approach it from a third angle. Your traditional races long ago overthrew a race that was just as advanced as them, if not better, for resouces, political reasons, etc. They were cast out of their lands into the Wilderness, perhaps add in a curse or such to explain their skin color. As pariah they lost most of their culture & beliefs. What started as them defending themselves from repeated attacks has turned into a way of life. The greenskins attack the traditional races because they have long seen them as a threat & as their boogeyman. The traditional races attack the greenskins because they keep attacking their people, & becase its been that way for so long its not taboo.

This would be a fair allegory for racism (except the green skin being a curse. Not a fan of that). But I'm not exactly aiming for an allegory for racism.

Racism takes superficial differences and makes them markers for a presumption. X colour is an indicator of Y. A feature is an indicator of B. Racism is a problem of special treatment/expectation when the peoples are, in fact, practically the same.

D&D "races", though, aren't races like IRL races. They aren't ethnicites. They're species. They have some different abilities and needs, the same way real people of different cultures, sexes or abiility can. Because the parallel is closer to xenophobia, sexism and ableism than racism (where the solution involves acknowledging, understanding and accomodating differences), I'd like the differences between orcs/goblins and "common" races to be highlighted and accounted for.

[Mechalich]

Racism takes superficial differences and makes them markers for a presumption. X colour is an indicator of Y. A feature is an indicator of B. Racism is a problem of special treatment/expectation when the peoples are, in fact, practically the same.

D&D "races", though, aren't races like IRL races. They aren't ethnicites. They're species. They have some different abilities and needs, the same way real people of different cultures, sexes or abiility can. Because the parallel is closer to xenophobia, sexism and ableism than racism (where the solution involves acknowledging, understanding and accomodating differences), I'd like the differences between orcs/goblins and "common" races to be highlighted and accounted for.

I use the term 'speciesism' to refer to prejudice based on functional variant traits in inter-species relationships. It's a term with some pedigree in science fiction and science fantasy (ex. it's cropped up in Star Wars on occasion) and can serve to differentiate between two different forms of prejudice.

Thinking this way you can also talk about differences that are open to reasonable accommodation, differences wherein the accommodation imposes a severe burden on one of the groups involved, and groups where accommodation is simply impossible.

Some examples. Reasonable accommodation is useful for something like modest size difference. Halflings and humans will naturally build their own spaces to different scales. As a result, you're going to need a separate building design for a mixed-species space, one that neither race is likely to find ideal. Accommodation that imposes a severe burden can be something like species that breathe two different substances. One species may be stuck inside masks and environment suits all the time when trying to deal with another species and this may severe limit the ability of these groups to interact in a functional way. The impossibility of accommodation shows up when species hold deterministically opposed worldviews, as in the case of a hegemonizing swarm species like the Borg. The Borg aren't 'evil' but if humanity wishes to survive they need to be fought.

[Anderlith]

Except the seperate races are not seperate species. They can interbreed & not produce a sterile offspring.

If you make the races seperate for socieconomic reasons then people will look for socioeconomic allegories to the races. I.e. socialist raiders attacking the hardworking famers.

The idea of a curse against them either as fallout from their own actions or perhaps as a brand against them from the traditional races, is just a lore way of explaining something, drop it if you want.

The idea of a race being attacked to the point of exile has been played out in the real world several times. & doesnt get enough spotlight

[GalacticAxekick]

Except the seperate races are not seperate species. They can interbreed & not produce a sterile offspring.

Only humans are so capable, if I'm not mistaken, much like "ring species" IRL where A can mate with B and B with C, but not A with C.

Either way, the point is that DnD races are not superficially different like IRL races. They have radically different abilities and needs. I'd like an allegory that reflects that, exploring awareness and accommodation of fundamentally different demographics.

If you make the races seperate for socieconomic reasons then people will look for socioeconomic allegories to the races. I.e. socialist raiders attacking the hardworking famers.

I have nothing against socio-economic allegories. But the whole concept here is to explain orc/goblin traits and stereotypes with nuance so they can be as morally and specially diverse as other races. Deciding that they're socialist or a race of raiders doesnt accomplish that. Deciding that they view property, territory and responsibility differently does.

The idea of a curse against them either as fallout from their own actions or perhaps as a brand against them from the traditional races, is just a lore way of explaining something, drop it if you want.

Dropped, because I'd really like ethnic traits to be superficial, or at most naturalistic adaptations, not morally charged.

The idea of a race being attacked to the point of exile has been played out in the real world several times. & doesnt get enough spotlight

I feel almost like it gets too much spotlight. Turf wars and resource conflicts are a staple in fantasy and sci fi. Civil rights and accommodations of misunderstood minorities/foreigners, less so

[Anderlith]

Only humans are so capable, if I'm not mistaken, much like "ring species" IRL where A can mate with B and B with C, but not A with C.

Depends on setting YMMV

Dropped, because I'd really like ethnic traits to be superficial, or at most naturalistic adaptations, not morally charged.

So are you arguing for ethnic differences or species differences? Compare to the tieflings cannon of being changed humans & most of the Mer in Elder Scrolls being physically changed for a mirid of reasons. Sometimes a physical change to the race makes them interesting instead of just saying that they have always been born that way. Magical worlds allow for magically explained evolution.

I feel almost like it gets too much spotlight. Turf wars and resource conflicts are a staple in fantasy and sci fi. Civil rights and accommodations of misunderstood minorities/foreigners, less so

Not really. Most are moral struggles with absolute evil & destiny. Most races have racially segregated nations & homelands/worlds. Pariah races dont have much spotlight. Notable ones, like the Warforged are hard to find because the pariah race are usually background NPC types. Look at Native American & early Jewish people examples for inspiration.

[Sarethus]

Question how do 'gods' factor in your setting?

In D&D there are gods who take active roles in their worshipper's life styles and encourage certain behavior trends (Lolth and Drow stand out in particular).

If you use Gruumsh as the chief orcish diety for example, well Gruumsh is pretty much conquest and plunder type of guy and not much for farming etc. If he's the primary diety of your orcs then he won't exactly be encouraging them to trade with humies and plant crops. He would be encouraging raiding and looting and would look upon orcs who decide to farm and trade as either being 'weak' like humies and elvys and possibly even a threat to his position. If orcs stop raiding then his worship goes down the drain.

Now there could be orcs and goblins who don't worship Gruumsh or may be he does not exist in your setting.

Regarding your actual changes though, while I agree with your "No entirely evil" race with a capital 'E'. I think your making things too complicated. K.I.S.S is a good design strategy most times.

The reasoning I suggest and use in my games however is simple and in my view oddly fitting:

Population Growth Speed:

An individual orc might be alright as a neighbor or even a friend and co-worker but what happens when there is a literal HORDE of orcs or goblins?

Remember how most fantasy settings have Elves & Dwarves having a problem with Humans because humans outbreed them and have just enough knowledge and ability to be a threat?

Well your green-skins could become the same thing to humans (which is what I find oddly fitting).

Orcs and Goblins in most settings breed even faster then humans. Any area where Green-Skins settle for a period of time is going to be drained of resources fairly quickly (even more so if you keep them as Hunter/Gatherers rather then farmers) and when a large number of people run low on resources they normally take them from their neighbors (which would likely be humans) with extreme im-politeness. (Much like elves accuse humans of doing to their forests). Even "Good" Green-skins would likely join in such an attack. (This should be valid in your setting as well unless you either change Green-Skin breeding rates and/or make them better farmers then humans in order to support a larger population which I would not recommend.)

[GalacticAxekick]

Question how do 'gods' factor in your setting?

Incidentally, they don't. I always keep the existence of higher powers about as ambiguous as it is in reality, and I never use source dieties.

Regarding your actual changes though, while I agree with your "No entirely evil" race with a capital 'E'. I think your making things too complicated. K.I.S.S is a good design strategy most times.

The reasoning I suggest and use in my games however is simple and in my view oddly fitting:

Population Growth Speed:

An individual orc might be alright as a neighbor or even a friend and co-worker but what happens when there is a literal HORDE of orcs or goblins?

Remember how most fantasy settings have Elves & Dwarves having a problem with Humans because humans outbreed them and have just enough knowledge and ability to be a threat?

Well your green-skins could become the same thing to humans (which is what I find oddly fitting).

Orcs and Goblins in most settings breed even faster then humans. Any area where Green-Skins settle for a period of time is going to be drained of resources fairly quickly (even more so if you keep them as Hunter/Gatherers rather then farmers) and when a large number of people run low on resources they normally take them from their neighbors (which would likely be humans) with extreme im-politeness. (Much like elves accuse humans of doing to their forests). Even "Good" Green-skins would likely join in such an attack. (This should be valid in your setting as well unless you either change Green-Skin breeding rates and/or make them better farmers then humans in order to support a larger population which I would not recommend.)

Conceivable! I do miss the social complexity, but your method is a good way to keep them ethically diverse while putting them at odds with others

[Max_Killjoy]

Population Growth Speed:

An individual orc might be alright as a neighbor or even a friend and co-worker but what happens when there is a literal HORDE of orcs or goblins?

Remember how most fantasy settings have Elves & Dwarves having a problem with Humans because humans outbreed them and have just enough knowledge and ability to be a threat?

Well your green-skins could become the same thing to humans (which is what I find oddly fitting).

Orcs and Goblins in most settings breed even faster then humans. Any area where Green-Skins settle for a period of time is going to be drained of resources fairly quickly (even more so if you keep them as Hunter/Gatherers rather then farmers) and when a large number of people run low on resources they normally take them from their neighbors (which would likely be humans) with extreme im-politeness. (Much like elves accuse humans of doing to their forests). Even "Good" Green-skins would likely join in such an attack. (This should be valid in your setting as well unless you either change Green-Skin breeding rates and/or make them better farmers then humans in order to support a larger population which I would not recommend.)

If "greens" (ugh) live in the harsh and unforgiving wilds of a setting, their higher birth-rate might be offset by a higher death-rate as well. Maybe for the most part they peacefully trade with the neighboring human settlements, but there's always pressure from the orcs who want to move into "easier, better" lands already occupied by humans and others, "poaching" on human lands, etc; and from humans who keep trying to clear the forests and plow the lands and settle where "greens" hunt and gather and trap and fish, pushing them back into worse and worse "leftover" lands, right into the wastes eventually.