Interview with Matthew Mercer | 3 Black Halflings Podcast

Here ye, here ye Three Black Halflings welcome a legend of the TTRPG world, the DM for Critical Role... Matthew Mercer. Story has it that they spoke about cybernetic dolphins, taking care of your 5x5 & how crocodiles hold guns!
Those pictures!
The only black halfling
Armoured Man
Man in swamp
Croc with a gun
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[@benjaminsimoneau5678]

Me over here trying to figure out why Matt's audio is so staticy when he appears to be in an absolute state of the art sound studio.

[@Erick-nw1ob]

Love all the Discussions! Love when everyone's able to get in their perspective!

[@jspenny]

D&D players think combat can be a slow process play 40K. Also about Orcs. I NEVER even heard of them as a code for Black people until a couple of years ago. They always seemed like barbaric hill tribes from European folklore to me.

[@trikrein]

Interesting. Been playing since AD&D including Dark Sun. It was seen as an issue and something we discussed back in the early 90s. Maybe we were ahead of our time or maybe it was because we always had diverse expressive tables.

[@jspenny]

@@trikrein It was never brought up in groups I played in and I never saw anything online. I don't know why it's just Orcs that get brought up. No one mentions Ogres, Hob/Goblins, Kobolds, Gnolls, Mindflayers etc. when bringing up "evil" races being "problematic". Is the position now that there are NO evil races in the game. Including Demons and Devils?

[@Enriqueguiones]

@@trikrein Orcs are GREEN VIKINGS. How the hell is that a code for Black people???

[@christopherplummer1299]

Honestly you can see Orcs as being coded for most anything. Just depends on your inherent biases and such. I always viewed orcs as willing pawns of corrupt industrialists and authoritarian politics.

[@jspenny]

​@@christopherplummer1299 True about Orcs. To me it depends what theme campaign you run as to what real life cultures the fantasy races might represent. I was running an Eastern inspired campaign. Hobgoblins are a Mongolian Horde parallel. Goblins, Oni all had more Japanese influence.

[@TimpanistMoth_AyKayEll]

Really delightful conversation!

[@EpifanesEuergetes]

I've watched quite a few Mercer discussions and this was the best. By far. Subscribed.

[@beanofglory1051]

What an absolutely delightful podcast :) Thank you so much for this - work flew by while I was listening!

[@melaneykk5986]

Possably some of the best few seconds on KZbin 43:42-44:04. Also I love the idea that there are just so many firearms in Florida that alagators evole to use them.

[@EricKinsman]

Great interview! I love the call back to Rifts- definitely bringing me back to my days playing in the 90s. I would love to see an update to a setting with fantasy, sci-fi, everything including the kitchen sink mixed together.

[@bigsarge2085]

Fantastic, so glad I found your channel!

[@radrob83]

cool too see everyones face 👍🏼 love the podcast

[@Hedron-Design]

So glad I found this channel. Sad that it took the OGL controversy for me to find it. Love you guys and love what you are doing.

[@LovingBeingNatural1]

Jeremy “Gun Gater” Cobb is a cool nickname

[@kenelliott6897]

to bad he is a racist!

[@chadliampolley6991]

Nice. :)

[@demnix6210]

Are the links there? Cant seem to see the pictures

[@davidarmstrong3302]

I started in the Palladium TMNT game, and can confirm that Rift system was absolutely nuts. They had a TMNT in post apocalyptic Australia that was a whole book of problematic.

[@hadesblackplays]

i love how natt nakre us renenber that ttrpgs is about a story thats made by the players in a collaaborative way, there shoouldnt be "anime protagonist" not for the players and neither for dm

[@ChrisMayek]

How were you able to get him on?

[@Darkpegasus849]

idk why orcs are the first thing discussed as problematic. the tolkien books have problematic things like the middle eastern faction being part of the evil groutp, the thing that i feel like it is problematic is that the orcs in a lot of miniatures and old school dnd were depicted as native americans but that is generally the problem when a lot of tribal races are the enemy and in some campaing settings like Bithright theres a lot of colonial themes, in the original lord of the rings they explained that orcs are corrupted elves kinda like zombies.

[@blerdsoftherealm410]

Completely agree my main issue with a lot of the race as evil has a lot of colonialism at it's heart. The large kingdoms being attacked by the tribal cultures always felt off and like it was mimicking the Roman empire forcing in to other lands.

[@carlwoods4564]

You are talking utter shite. Tolkiens books were from a different era. And mostly written as a linguistic experiment. You're looking for a reason to be offended. Its pathetic.

[@melinnamba]

The orcs are the first to be discussed, because everyone knows them. Hardly anyone, who isn't a major Tolkien fan is aware of any of the other problematic factions. If you are discussing problematic fantasy tropes out side of a very specific niche of fantasy nerds, orcs are just the better example to get your point across.

[@andrewlustfield6079]

@@melinnamba You need to put Tolkien in context to get a greater understanding of what he was doing. Actually, there was an implicit critique of colonialism in Tolkien's world, just like there's a critique of industrialization. He explored this critique in showing how the poor treatment of many native tribes by the Numenorians actually drove those native tribes into Sauron's fold. After the fall of Numenor, the bad blood remained and festered as it so often does. Just look at the Middle East, where you have ancient tribes who all have very long memories. This is why he had (I believe it was Sam, though it might have been Faramir) muse if a dead Easterling he had come across was evil in his heart. Also when you consider Tolkien's literary tradition--it was rooted in North Germany and Scandinavia--at the time the epics he was studying were written, the traditional enemies of those tribes were the Huns, who were a people from the Mongolian Steppes. Also, the word orc is very old, dating back to Charlemagne's era, so the 800s. It's derived from Latin, meaning "from the pits of hell." There's a reason the demon lord Orcus has a very similar sounding name. It's because it means the same thing. But this is all Tolkien and folklore. If we step into TTRPGs, however--what I see as problematic is the current trend anthropomorphize every type of being--whether it's an orc or a giant hedgehog from the fay wild. So it's very Star Trek Next Generation--just a bunch of different humans with oddly shaped heads who solve middle-east peace every week in roughly 45 minutes. Let's pause for a moment with orcs, and shift our focus to a giant hedge hog. What are a hedge hog's priorities? What would be important enough for them to take up an adventure? How do they relate to the world and through which of their senses? I don't see a player character there when I consider these questions. Given that' they are scavengers, they would be looking for the next carcass to eat and for a mate and that's about it. So now what are an orc's priorities? What would be important enough for an orc to go on adventure? Maybe to further the cause of their gods, like Gruumsh? For pillage and plunder and to corrupt other species? So in my own games, I de-anthropomorphize orcs and other smaller humanoids to what degree I can while still maintaining that they are mammalian. Even though females have only four dugs. Weak and sickly infants are just left to starve and die. They reach full maturity in ten years, so their levels of empathy and rough morality is somewhat informed by what we see in child soldiers, but magnified. Because they are basically a species brought into being by dark powers from the pits of hell, so they don't have a lot in the way of free will---that hard wiring is deep in them. Birth rates are five females to every two males because they need to out-breed other aggressive species, like humans, and they can interbreed with humans and other species, producing strong but sterile offspring--similar to the way mules are sterile. That's why there are things like Orogs and half-orcs.

[@Youssii]

Wow you all have faces!

[@Zr0din]

Sub Earned... Thanks again for the work you do 3BH! And Rifts was a great game environment but they kept adding things and it became unplayable after the Africa sourcebook. A 20th Level Wilderness Expert couldn't match the power of a first level Cosmic Knight! Talk about power bloat!

[@theoldgamer3643]

15:29

[@havenomouth]

Piers Anthony when you are young is great. You grow up, feel a bit nostalgic, and pick up an old book. 30 minutes later, you just nope out.

[@WayneBraack]

Not I. I understand the humor. It's not too complex.

[@scetchmonkey007]

The move away from "Evil Races" is a double edge sword. in a fantasy game you need to have evil to fight and certain creatures being "irredeemably evil" makes for an easy setup to encounters. Undead, Mind Flayer, Neogi are still irredeemably evil, back in the day Orcs used to fill this spot because of Tolkien orcs, and there is something cool about tolkien orcs that you only get in that setting. But then again Warcraft Orcs also cool. I'd think that in order to get away from irreedemably evil we just need better content such as a descriptive text for what a good, neutral or evil example of each races society should be. That would give GM's more lore on how to write the story they want to. lets have a campaign with good orcs and evil Harengon. But ultimately somethings gotta be the evil threat in the world.

[@TheZenBullet]

I've been running games for over 30 years at this point and never relied on always evil races

[@scetchmonkey007]

@@TheZenBullet Tell me how to do a good mind flayer then. I tried that once, of course PC's murdered them on sight... I was able to pull off a good beholder once, but that's only from running rock of braal spelljammer that had a beholder bartender written in as an NPC in town. But the idea that all monsters have both good and evil representation in each campaign you encounter them is ludicrous. Monsters are designed to be evil by nature Mind flayers must eat the brains of intelligent creatures to survive. That makes them evil, and unlike say vampires there is no easy work around their feeding in witch the victim can survive. They are not going to cast raise dead (5000gp diamond) after each meal. Sure as GM you can change the lore... let mind flayers eat animal brains but then mind flayers stop having that dread when they are encountered. All we can do is change things up from game to game. Currently in spelljammer, I will have all elf societies to be evil, the big bad is the elven armada's taking over the PC's home sphere because the players wont expect that. This leads into the importance of a creatures stereotype and the general knowledge on how to interact with them. Using this you can play into or against type, but if type and alignment becomes meaningless, then those creatures become much harder to write for.

[@neildoscher9536]

@@scetchmonkey007 There's a difference though between mindflayers and orcs in dnd. Orcs are a humanoid race that form settlements and shit. Mind Flayers form 'colonies' where they are all controlled by an Elder Brain, and mindflayers themselves telepathically control other creatures. There's a spectrum here that isn't really being discussed. Mindflayers are closer to the xenomorph than they are to humans and Orcs are much closer to humans. The argument that all Mindflayers should be evil and the conversation about whether the Harengon should be evil so that we have an evil threat in the world are I think 2 different talking points. You want the Harengon to be irredeemably evil? Make them slavers or something. They aren't evil because they're rabbits though, and thats the difference.

[@scetchmonkey007]

@@neildoscher9536 You completely miss the point. I was speaking on a game by game example. IE Harengon can be evil one game but good the next. And yes I know the lore of mindflayers. My point is that in each game you need something to be irredeemably evil, and sometimes that will be a race like orcs that can have varied alignments from game to game. And your choice of whats evil will depend on the type of game you are playing. IE if you are going for tolkien low magic fantasy then orcs are perfectly fine. In forgotten realms one area of the realms may view orcs as evil and others may be completely okay with interacting with them. Thus if you have a player playing a half-orc he may find prejudice depending on where in the world the game is. and When the location changes so does the prejudice of the common folk. And that is what is interesting about choosing the half-orc as a Player. If humans and orcs are good friends with no side viewing the other as evil... well then you lose that concept about being a half orc possibly even spoiling the player concept about his own character, and that ruins the fun. Which is why some game worlds need to have that irredeemably evil aspect in some creatures. IE In Dragonlance, goblins are always evil their is no mid ground written for them anywhere in Krynn. Draconians on the other hand started out evil, but became more neutral as the dragon armies disbanded and they gained independence as a race. Doesn't mean other races wont view them as evil because of their history. And this is why 5E will never do Darksun and they fail at dragonlance. They are too chicken about defining a solid line of good and evil in a fantasy game world that really needs a unique interpretation on that to make the wold interesting. And if you don't like those hard lines there is always forgotten realms which is becoming very a very milk toast and bland world.

[@WalkOnNick]

Tolkien confirmed lazy.

[@scetchmonkey007]

Okay when you stated you tried to generalize a whole group of people with no basis in truth in reality... when referring to D&D fictional races made you lose most the respect I had for this podcast.