D&D General Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity

[Curmudjinn]

Funny. That's exactly what the Asians Represent! podcast was saying, too.

They are saying this overreacting to everything is a waste of time or they are aboard the white outrage train?
Being Native American, I feel like I'm watching two trains hitting each other in slow motion. There will be no middle ground. One side will push through or the other.

 

[DammitVictor]

They are saying this overreacting to everything is a waste of time or they are aboard the white outrage train?

You say they're overreacting, but you can sit down to a nice game of D&D without having to listen to their politics. They can't sit down to a nice game of D&D without having to listen to yours.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Stopping you right here. Because the narrator of the Duergar story is.... the omniscient view of WoTC presenting the objective facts. Unreliable narrators are great, but that is not what is happening here, because this isn't a narrator at all, but the game designer telling us the real story.

Which is why I said, "But since we are talking about RPGs and not a novel..."

 

[Curmudjinn]

You say they're overreacting, but you can sit down to a nice game of D&D without having to listen to their politics. They can't sit down to a nice game of D&D without having to listen to yours.

Thanks for another example of the typical argument of telling others what they mean and believe to validate self-opinion.
Reacting and overreacting are not the same thing. You can do the former without the latter.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

How are they punished? That's asinine. The PHB isn't an edict from on high. It's not military doctrine. It's malleable, it's built to bend as you need for fun and fun alone. As D&D has forever been.

You're punished for playing a VGtM orc with the negative stereotypes, penalty to intelligence, and it overall being an awful race.

 

[Curmudjinn]

You're punished for playing a VGtM orc with the negative stereotypes, penalty to intelligence, and it overall being an awful race.

The thousands of players who've been punished playing the many Drizzt Do'Urden clones think this is a nonsense overreaction. Sure, changing it to something that is more malleable for newer players or rules-lawyers that cannot/will not modify things, is a good decision. But asinine reasons like being punished is ridiculous.

A player wants to play a good orc, they can play a good orc. Playing a smart orc? DM removed racial modifiers. The generic setting says orcs usually behave a certain way, but the books literally state to change whatever you need to suit your whims in a game.
It's literally that simple. A wave of uproar over it? The refusal/laziness/inability to modify one's own games to suit a a character or campaign without iron rules-following seems the culprit.

One of my players plays a noble hobgoblin monk, with a shaolin touch. He started an order of the same type. He somehow played it without a Twitter uproar, rules-rewriting or being punished.
How was that even possible?! The arguments here state it is not possible without being punished.
Asinine.

 

[Chaosmancer]

A player wants to play a good orc, they can play a good orc. Playing a smart orc? DM removed racial modifiers. The generic setting says orcs usually behave a certain way, but the books literally state to change whatever you need to suit your whims in a game.
It's literally that simple. A wave of uproar over it? The refusal/laziness/inability to modify one's own games to suit a a character or campaign without iron rules-following seems the culprit.

Asking that the baseline content does not include racist language is not being too lazy to modify the game. It is a call for empathy from the company.

Yes, people can change the rules of the game. But, try something for a second. Read the PHB races. Find all the races that mention living in the slums of a city.

What do they all have in common?

 

[Curmudjinn]

Asking that the baseline content does not include racist language is not being too lazy to modify the game. It is a call for empathy from the company.

Yes, people can change the rules of the game. But, try something for a second. Read the PHB races. Find all the races that mention living in the slums of a city.

What do they all have in common?

A species in a fantasy world, brought into being by an evil god, with a bloodline thinned to the point of having an option to be a player character, with the lore stigma of having ancestors of evil God spawn.
..Is racist?
Forcing a real world judgment on a fantasy concept to create a connection to be far more alike than it is, seems more of a bigoted thought.

Taking that lore away seems a perilous thing, like burning the history of a place because you're the new conqueror. Rewriting a history steeped in Tolkien fantasy, of orcs being fell creations. Drow being beholden to Lolth, etc.

A iteration of that needs to remain. Amending it to including a couple more background concepts of usually-fell races is a better idea than burning away their lore to put something completely different in its place.

 

[Eltab]

Re: Roman slavery (a tangent)
If WotC ever has 5e Dark Sun mechanics ready to release, will the setting background survive the social media flamethrowers sure to be aimed at it?

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Re: Roman slavery (a tangent)
If WotC ever has 5e Dark Sun mechanics ready to release, will the setting background survive the social media flamethrowers sure to be aimed at it?

These are people's concerns. Companies don't like to weather the assault and then content will be censored or never released.