TTRPG without racism
It's actually possible but requires more than a name change
If you're not a TTRPG - or tabletop role playing game - person, you may enjoy this or hate it. Don't worry if this topic is not for you, next week’s might be! There is a small bit of talk about the mechanics of a specific character, but if you have any questions about anything please do ask!
I'm not going off on anything so broad as the entirety of TTRPGness because that would be the most endless post ever.
Nope, I'm going after the racism in certain TTRPGs (if you know, you know), but instead of lambasting them, I’m gonna offer a better way.
Historically, one big TTRPG game has held the greatest market share. It was founded by a racist, who used racist stuff as a template, so it was a bit fucked up from the get-go and there are a lot of aspects I could be choosing here.
But I'm going for racism because that's the current thing that keeps coming up, the racism has never actually been fixed, and because I actually came up with a fix for the problem.
Above game is racist as fuck (as are many others, seriously, try some indie games). Every race is a monolith (except for humans who can be great at everything), and the race you choose pushes your character down ever-decreasing possible roads of progression. You started a certain way, and you can buck the trend (so in the end you'll be a mess of stuff that doesn't really work), or you'll be tipped down the “correct” pathways.
And that's even before we hit the racial dogwhistles encoded into every non-human race.
Here's not the place to look for a deep dive of that, but if you want to know more I have some links for you at the end. There are folk way better placed than me to talk about that.
This game has been claiming not-racism for a long time, and finally turned round and went “fine! It's species now, not race, and you have an itsy bit more control. Now leave me alone!”
But that's the exact problem. To throw out the racism you need to do more than just give it a new paint job. You need to strip it down, burn it all, and start anew.
How? Well I'm gonna give you an option right here, with example.
Meet Ilyat. Smuggler, Assassin, and Elemental Child.
Cuddles has years of experience being a player and GM, and within this group everything has always been pretty homebrewed. Add to that, that the dice system which was almost always used was a hacked version of World of Darkness, because it was one we all knew.
So Cuddles decided to make a new game to GM for me and another friend, and the first thing I encouraged was using a different system! So I send her Apocalypse World, from which she discovered Dungeon World—the hacked version of Apocalypse for fantasy games.
And then it arrived. The moment. My time. Cuddles asked for help populating the world.
An hour later we have a melting pot of an Empire with a barter economy & open immigration, where most people are such a mix of races it's really just a melting pot where folk are encouraged to love and live and be happy. Queer: check. Communism: check.
Yes there are guards but they are so far avoiding being assholes—in fact when a murder victim showed up they asked me, a half-djinn assassin school graduate with a background in smuggling, to look into it because I'd do it better than they would 🤷♂️ I also have a deal with the guards where I help them in exchange for hours of their time. So I can request X guards leave/be at Y location at Z time, and just spend some of my stored hours to get the situation I need.
Anyway, when we got to figuring out how to assign new character bonuses, of course, all the previous mixed race stuff said “Hi! How you gonna manage me then?”
So I already had this idea percolating, and I gave Cuddles the suggestion that, because it's a better way in general even if you don't have every possible version of a racial mix everywhere, and absolutely better than having an entire race be exactly the same. What if…
What if those starting bonuses were assigned based on the character's background? Where they grew up, what they grew up doing, etc.
For example, my character has 3 biological parents (mum, dad, djinn - if you really want the explanation of how that works both practically and with full consent, lemme know!). My djinn parent is a water elemental, so when I reached an age where I could make a sensible decision, I could choose to forever let my djinn side go, or take it in and learn from it.
My mum and dad, and much of my family, were smugglers. Where we lived was harsh and unforgiving (see photo above), so you better believe I went for that water magic! But basically, smuggling was the best way to get what we needed.
Now, in the game I‘m not naming (solely because I refuse to make it too easy for the racist white enabling sealions to find me), this would make me an ifrit, which would automatically force +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, and –2 Wisdom onto me before I got to choose anything else about my character.
But that doesn’t make too much sense, given my character’s actual background.
Dungeon World also does a version of this, in that picking a race and class you are given a skill that is specific to that combination.
For example, if you’re an elven bard, when entering an important location you can ask the GM for a fact about it.
So what Cuddles did was strip away any automatic bonuses, give us all a set bunch of points to spend, and some skills directly related to our background.
I got inherent knowledge of illicit & illegal items & substances (smuggling), and a bonus to knowledge of the ancient history of the Empire (because I trained as an assassin in the capital city), and an agreement that I could partially make myself water, and would multiclass with elemental magic.
And then I spent the rest of my skills on things related to smuggling, assassin training, and being part-elemental like poisons and backstabbing.
And then I had a discussion with Cuddles about my weapons. Because I’d chosen daggers. Dual wielding specially made ones mostly, but also throwing knives, and a single blade. I’m a sneaky assassin. So my points went into Dexterity. But then Cuddles told me that my attacks would be Strength. So I gave a good argument for trained assassin knife-fighting to be able to use Dexterity. Because the entire thing is about being light, constantly moving, getting in beneath your opponent’s guard, getting their blind side, keeping them off-balance while you nimbly close in and stab.
So by the time we were done, my entire sheet reflected those skills from my history and training. And yes, some of them do include water abilities, but that’s not a racial bonus, that’s me actively learning from my djinn parent how to access them.
So what I’m saying in a nutshell is: if you want to give your players starting bonuses, use their actual history and home culture, give them things that make sense specifically to them, as an individual, not a monolith. Also, let them make choices about what their character would have, and if you want the GM to change a rule on how something works, make a good argument for it and a good GM will work with you.
Links!
Here is your promised further reading, but this is the very tip of the iceberg, so if you want to know more please search for more pieces, find the authors on social media, follow non-white ttrpg gamers, and also please, please, please try some indie ttrpg games (itch.io is a good place to start looking). Expand your horizons to creators and commentators who are BIPOC, LGBTQIA, disabled, and beyond!
Who Cares About DND Races and Racism? (We All Should)
D&D’s attempts to root out racism in its books have taken a step backward
D&D Must Grapple With the Racism in Fantasy
Dungeons & Diversity: How Racism Permeates the Fantasy Genre
Also remember to always begin a game with a Session 0, to establish consent and boundaries for all players, and ways for gameplay to be stopped if a player (or GM) feels uncomfortable.
Here’s one place to look, but there are others: Safety Tools in TTRPGs
Image credits:
1: TTRPG dice
2: Ilyat, drawn by Lexi Harvey of Team Cuddles
3: Top View Beautiful RPG Still Life
4: Drought Land
Wonderful writing! I remember when my group stopped playing this system in late 2020 because of all the racism stuff. I’d love to see a follow up volume sometime expounding on alternatives to The Big One With The Huge Marketing Budget. I know we explored many including Cypher, Ryuutama, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Wanderhome, Glitter Hearts, and more.
[REDACTED TTRPG SYSTEM] seems like it's in a weird place where the stock backgrounds are sort of... underwhelming? A little too thin to flesh out a character's attributes, skills, and abilities.
I feel like the changes to character-building in Tasha's do some really good things for getting around the weird racist stuff that [REDACTED FANTASY AUTHOR] baked into older fantasy tropes; but then also put a lot of extra work onto the daunting task of a player making their own character.
I need to look and see if there are any useful 'templates' for new players, or players with writers block, who want some cool ability/skill/lore/flavor packets like your smuggling/assassination history for Ilyat! I think that's the thing that would really push Tasha's into fixing how race & character creation interact, at least.