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.

  • context [fae/faer, fae/faer]@hexbear.netMEnglish
    42·
    11 months ago

    for those unfamiliar:

    Q&A with Gary Gygax, Part II | Wed Jun 22, 2005 1:54 pm

    Paladins are not stupid, and in general there is no rule of Lawful Good against killing enemies. The old addage about nits making lice applies. [emphasis mine] Also, as I have often noted, a paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good. They are then sent on to their reward before thay can backslide :lol:

    Cheers, Gary [Gygax]

    that’s a particularly chosen turn of phrase, innit? comes from the sand creek massacre in which hundreds of people, mostly women and children, were murdered and mutilated by white settlers.

    In November, 1864, a group of Colorado volunteers, under the command of Colonel John M. Chivington (1821-1894), fell on a group of Cheyennes at Sand Creek, where they had gathered under the governor’s protection. “We must kill them all, big and small,” he told his men. “Nits make lice” (nits are the eggs of lice).

    anyway you’re exactly right and it’s one of the reasons i’ve pretty much stopped played d&d and pathfinder.

    • Jobasha [comrade/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      34·
      11 months ago

      Thanks for actually sourcing that crap, the nits make lice line was exactly what I was thinking of when I wrote the post. As I said, Gygax was a piece of shit. He also had horrible views regarding women, who he considered as biologically hardwired to not take much interest in ttrpgs. rip in piss asshat

    • Zezzy [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      28·
      11 months ago

      He’s very aware of the origin too. Later in that conversation he added:

      Chivington might have been quoted as saying “nits make lice,” but he is certainly not the first one to make such an observation as it is an observable fact. If you have read the account of wooden Leg, a warrior of the Cheyenne tribe that fought against Custer et al., he dispassionately noted killing an enemy squaw for the reason in question.

      Cheers,

      Gary

    • TheDialectic [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      18·
      11 months ago

      Gygax was originally a war gamer if that tells you about the kinda chud energy he was bringing to the table. DnD, originally called chain mail, was supper to be a system for small unit and complex terrain battles. The role-playing elements were grafted onto the system later. Quite a few of the problems are directly related to that. Interestingly in thr first few sets of rules there was no XP system. It was all gold. Which is a specific kind of elegant. A figter with more gold has had more time to train and has better equipment. That is why killing things yielded xp. It was a fungible resource. It makes the spending xp to craft magic items work better as well.