D&D is so bad it's a wonder that anyone who isn't a knuckle-dragging, misogynist, racist, homophobe, can even crack open one of the rule books without turning into a black pudding, weeping and quivering in the corner. Think of the children, and other sensitive persons.
If those who know better than you and I don't ban the books, the covers should at least be wrapped in plain brown paper and come with a Surgeon General's warning! Trigger-warnings anyone? If people want to buy this material they should be forced to get it from some sleazy guy in a trench coat down some back alley. Cash (or barter) only!
"Want to play a fantasy role-playing game?" Well that line has certainly earned me a few slaps and disgusted looks over the years, although come to think of it, there was that cute redhead who wondered, "Do I have to wear a costume?" But, I digress ...
Hello!?!? Wake up people and get with the Program!!!
D&D and the typical player are
so offensive and awful I don't know where to even begin ...
Think about your typical D&D adventure: A group of players meet in a tavern (are under-age players even allowed to do that??), on the edges of civilization and venture into the untamed wilderness to kill monsters and
savages for the glory of their deities, or their kingdoms, or greed! Might makes right! There are so many brutish, inferior races and creatures in Dungeons and Dragons for players to kill it becomes hard to imagine them as anything but
The Other. It's blatant colonialism and imperialism. A proxy race war! Diversity only exists for the players to exterminate. If Leni Riefenstahl were filming the D&D movie it would look like
Triumph of the Will set in Faerûn!
Just look at the PHB - players choose their Race before they choose a class! So much for judging by the content of our character eh? MLK is rolling over in his grave...
You ever notice all the plusses humans (read: White Male Imperialists) get to add to their attributes? That's no accident. Those greedy dwarves who crave gold? If that doesn't set your anti-semetic radar buzzing you need to report to sensitivity training. Elves, gnomes, half (not three-quarters or two-thirds)-lings, Tiefling the Devil race ... Half-orcs? WOW, what can you say there? Rape culture anyone? There's just too much to racially deconstruct with a postmodern enlightened mind I'll need to do a graduate school thesis.
You want to discuss Class Warfare? Just read this forum. Warlord anyone?
The new multi-cultural pictures? That little blurb about the new gender policy in fifth edition? Greedy corporate lip service! It's just the exception that proves the rule! Like that Drizzit Drow character (Or however you spell it, I can't do weird foreign names). Poor guy – he's rejected by all: too good to be accepted by his own people, misunderstood, an outcast. Yeah, right ... as if we can't see through that ruse!
Don't even get me started on the Drow ... Hello? Underdark = Under Class. Black skin = Evil. And they're slavers to boot! Ha!
Sweet Home Alabama now there's a clever twist! Plus the Drow have that whole 'Queen of the Spiders', caught in Her web, matriarchal, psycho-sexual torture thing going on (Side Note: nothing wrong with BDSM, it's a valid lifestyle choice, the original FRPG) but it just perpetuates all the misogynist stereotypes against strong, powerful women.
Out Of The Abyss is just code for
The War on Women.
The earlier editions of D&D are even worse - I can't define pornography for you, but I know it when I see it! Remember all the pictures of naked and topless females in the old books? It was so bad I used to have to hide them under my bed so my Mother wouldn't see. Remember that illustration of the Succubus? Wow, that kick-started the teenage hormones didn't it? Woot!
What? Right. I'm offended. I need to make a saving throw.