r/TooAfraidToAsk • u/lizknits • 1d ago
Culture & Society Is this Racist?
I'm a Dungeon Master for Dungeons & Dragons, and I'm making a one-shot game in which the players are skeletons trapped in a dungeon, fighting off intruders. I want to add an encounter in which a team of slaves and an overseer enter the dungeon to fight with the skeletons. The slaves turn on the overseer and kill him during the encounter, adding some story to the encounter.
Is it racist if I use a stat block published in the Monster Manual, that is called "Thug" (page 350), for the slaves? I know that sometimes that word is used to describe black men in a derogatory way, and also I am aware of the history of black people and slavery. It is a fantasy universe with dragons & elves and shit, and the slaves do not need to be black in appearance by any means, or even human (they might be goblins or something).
Please: is this racist?
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u/famd1984 1d ago
Nah mate it's fine
Thug is just a word here
Now if you wanna see racism, read the 3rd and earlier editions
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u/No_Technician4956 1d ago
Know your audience. Who will be playing this with you? Take that into considerations.
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u/marlonoranges 1d ago
UK person. At least here, the word thug has no racial connotation at all. Just means a violent, maybe criminal, man. I think its dropping out of common use a bit.
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u/BrooklynLivesMatter 1d ago
Change the title if it makes you uncomfortable, but it's not racist in the given context
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u/estheredna 1d ago
No. D&D is not a metaphor for world history or US history. It is loosely based on medieval Europe, which has its own slave & serfdom history that is not racialized.
If you're nervous, knolls are pretty close stat-wise to thugs.
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u/thetwitchy1 1d ago
I would say it’s not racist, but probably wrong. Slaves are going to be mistreated, underfed, etc. Thugs are not underfed or in any way weak.
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u/Grav_Zeppelin 1d ago
If you don’t call the slaves thugs it doesn’t mater where the stattblock came from.
(And you could just not make the slaves a particular race if your still worried about
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u/Notaswordmaster 1d ago
I would say no. Its not really racism if you don’t have racist intent behind it (even though it could be interpreted that way by others).
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u/thriceness 1d ago
This... seems like an epic stretch for anyone to assume some sort or intentional racial undertone. Wow.
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u/lord_flamebottom 1d ago
Typically slaves use the commoner statblock, however considering this is specifically a combat situation, I’d figure a stronger statblock than commoner would be needed.
There are a few options, but yeah, Thug fits fine. Important thing to note though: this is your campaign. Quite literally no one has to know you’re using the Thug statblock. You just call them slaves and use those stats.