I am sorry if this is something basic that has been discussed to death before but I feel like I need to get this out of my system before I ruin friendships by wishing centuries of humiliation on people for the way they play pretend.
I had a casual chat with a friend and fellow GM about our current campaigns and worldbuilding. At some point beast races come up and I mention I like gnolls and give a few short details about their society in my setting. In response I get an explanation that he can’t have this kind of characterization because of Goebbles level bullshittery about how beastmen are inherently savage and destructive and basically a swarm of pests that has to be put down. And how this is necessary in order to address the moral issues of what to do with beastmen non-combatants. Essentially giving players moral license to commit genocide and still be considered “good” in-universe.
It felt so fucking unreal seeing how normally chill people can almost reproduce word for word the vile shit that Zionists are using right fucking now as a justification for mass murder and not have a single moment of “oh shit wait wtf am I saying”. I had to step away from the keyboard and calm down. I hate how concept of “sapient creatures that are completely and irredeemably evil and are specifically designed to be slaughtered” is seen as something completely normal and even expected. Gygax was a piece of shit genocide enthusiast who deserves to rot in hell and it’s high time that we move on from colonial plunder sims with dragons and obligatory others that exist only to be killed and looted.
You are building an imaginary world and there are no limits. The genre is literally called imagination. There is no excuse for consciously designing entire species that are designated for slaughter and reproducing some of the vilest ideologies ever thought up by humans as a pillar of your worldbuilding.
That’s it I guess. That’s the rant. Thanks for reading. I am doing my best trying to give positive portrayals of non-human societies in my games and also trying to get my friends to play other games that aren’t built from around breaking into others’ homes to kill them and take their stuff.
One of my favorite parts of LotR was that conversation between orcs complaining about their shit bosses and lamenting having to be part of Sauron’s stupid war! It’s so humanizing, and yet Tolkien still couldn’t commit to that because of…Catholic guilt & anxiety?
His Catholic guilt is why he started to reconsider them though. His view of orcs as inherently evil was something he regretted expressly because it went against his views as a Catholic. He didn’t like the implication of beings that are irredeemable, and had changed his original idea of them being created evil since he rejected the premise that evil can create new life. The fact that Orcs hated their masters gave him a reason to settle on them being pre-existing, but corrupted. Then there is shit about “rational souls” and more of the Legendarium or whatever that I cannot fathom.
So it is quite literally the opposite
True! I think I worded it poorly in my lack of sleep lol. I think I was more on about the weirdness of Eru just 100% importing the all knowing/all powerful/all loving god issue and ofc that’s not gonna get resolved by Tolkien in his fantasy books