D&D General Old School DND talks if DND is racist.

[JEB]

I think if a creature is a fiend, then questions of morality become kind of irrelevant.

OK, then delete fiend from that list. A pig-headed creature, created by an evil god to pillage and destroy the land, that's an aberration (like a mind flayer) or a monstrosity (like an umber hulk). Now that the concept looks more inhuman, and doesn't have the humanoid type, it no longer raises concerns?

I’d like to see them less obvious. No horns or flaming eyes etc. instead at times either by their choosing or because they get angry or passionate these traits are revealed. Think the Lucifer TV show. Otherwise they look like what ever range of skin tones their parents would have.

I feel like a lot of tiefling players, plus fans of characters like Jester, would be unhappy to lose the aesthetics of the race; that looking kind of like a demon is part of their cool factor.

 

[Zardnaar]

OK, then delete fiend from that list. A pig-headed creature, created by an evil god to pillage and destroy the land, that's an aberration (like a mind flayer) or a monstrosity (like an umber hulk). Now that the concept looks more inhuman, and doesn't have the humanoid type, it no longer raises concerns?


I feel like a lot of tiefling players, plus fans of characters like Jester, would be unhappy to lose the aesthetics of the race; that looking kind of like a demon is part of their cool factor.

The horns and tail are to much for me. Not that they have them but to over the top and bleah.

 

[TheSword]

OK, then delete fiend from that list. A pig-headed creature, created by an evil god to pillage and destroy the land, that's an aberration (like a mind flayer) or a monstrosity (like an umber hulk). Now that the concept looks more inhuman, and doesn't have the humanoid type, it no longer raises concerns?


I feel like a lot of tiefling players, plus fans of characters like Jester, would be unhappy to lose the aesthetics of the race; that looking kind of like a demon is part of their cool factor.

The head of the creature is irrelevant to its type. Gnolls are humano The question is do they share overwhelming numbers of things in common with people.

Though it isn’t an exact science.

Its not for me to say why people play Tieflings. Just that I can see why a roleplaying group being expected to be suspicious of another character because they come from ‘bad blood’ is seen by outsiders as eye opening.

 

[JEB]

The head of the creature is irrelevant to its type. Gnolls are humano The question is do they share overwhelming numbers of things in common with people.

Though it isn’t an exact science.

So to be clear, the concept of a species with a human-like shape that's created by an evil power to wreak havoc isn't necessarily a problem? It's the portrayal of that race that should ultimately matter?

 

[TheSword]

So to be clear, the concept of a species with a human-like shape that's created by an evil power to wreak havoc isn't necessarily a problem? It's the portrayal of that race that should ultimately matter?

Every race has a creation myth Orcs being the classic one.

Im just saying if a creature superficially looks, behaves and reacts like a person then it’s probably right to treat it like a person.

 

[JEB]

Every race has a creation myth Orcs being the classic one.

Sure. That's my personal approach on gnolls, for example, that the 5E demon origin is just cultist propaganda. My orcs aren't inherently evil or destructive either, Gruumsh is just one story. But that's just my preference, of course.

Im just saying if a creature superficially looks, behaves and reacts like a person then it’s probably right to treat it like a person.

So mind flayers, that in many senses behave and react like a person, and are clearly intelligent beings, are OK not to treat as people because they don't look human? Because we're told they're aberrations?

Conversely, if you had a species that looked human, but ate brains, reproduced through tadpoles, and had strange psionic powers, would it be OK to treat them as inhuman? What if they had the humanoid type instead of aberration?

If you can't treat them as inhuman, why? Aesthetics? Looking human is the dividing line? But 5E gnolls don't look human, or even act human; the only clear indicator of their being humanoid is their type. They could easily be defined as monstrosities. Or even fiends. But officially, they're humanoid.

If it would be justifiable to treat this hypothetical human-illithid as inhuman, why are 5E orcs different, if they were created by Gruumsh to pillage and destroy, and it really is part of their nature? What if Wizards had decided orcs in 5E were monstrosities instead? Or fiends? Would they still be problematic?

I don't mean to put you specifically on the spot, to be clear. And I'm not advocating that Wizards shouldn't address obviously problematic things in their products. But I'm just trying to illustrate that these lines aren't as straightforward as some folks might think they are. Especially to folks not familiar with D&D, unlike most of us on ENWorld.

 

[TheSword]

Sure. That's my personal approach on gnolls, for example, that the 5E demon origin is just cultist propaganda. My orcs aren't inherently evil or destructive either, Gruumsh is just one story. But that's just my preference, of course.


So mind flayers, that in many senses behave and react like a person, and are clearly intelligent beings, are OK not to treat as people because they don't look human? Because we're told they're aberrations?

Conversely, if you had a species that looked human, but ate brains, reproduced through tadpoles, and had strange psionic powers, would it be OK to treat them as inhuman? What if they had the humanoid type instead of aberration?

If you can't treat them as inhuman, why? Aesthetics? Looking human is the dividing line? But 5E gnolls don't look human, or even act human; the only clear indicator of their being humanoid is their type. They could easily be defined as monstrosities. Or even fiends. But officially, they're humanoid.

If it would be justifiable to treat this hypothetical human-illithid as inhuman, why are 5E orcs different, if they were created by Gruumsh to pillage and destroy, and it really is part of their nature? What if Wizards had decided orcs in 5E were monstrosities instead? Or fiends? Would they still be problematic?

I don't mean to put you specifically on the spot, to be clear. And I'm not advocating that Wizards shouldn't address obviously problematic things in their products. But I'm just trying to illustrate that these lines aren't as straightforward as some folks might think they are. Especially to folks not familiar with D&D, unlike most of us on ENWorld.

Maybe I’m crazy. But I find it hard to believe that people actually think a mindflayer is like a human. Other than being roughly the same shape. They don’t behave at all like people. They stand at the top of a pyramid of mentally dominated slave races and they consume the psychic energies of their brains to sustain themselves, implanting tadpole offspring into the brains of humans to transform them into more Illithids.

Gnolls on other hands eat similar food - meat.
Breed true and reproduce the same way.
Grow young the same way.
Communicate with verbal language the same way
Live in tribal structures the same way.

All things are a matter of degrees.

 

[Remathilis]

EDIT wrong thread

 

[Justice and Rule]

Found on SageAdvice.eu. authenticity not verified.

That's a really great cover, not gonna lie. Hopefully we get some expansions on Barovia and the Domain of Dread that moves away from bad stereotypes. But a good move from WOTC nonetheless.

 

[Mannahnin]

I assure you there were psychological studies and science showing how D&D turned one to drugs/violence/antisocial behavior. These were later proven to be erroneous...but that is how science works. It is constantly being updated, changing, proving and disproving.

Just as a quick point of fact, there were no such studies. There was a quack psychiatrist (Dr. Thomas Radecki, now a convicted felon for trading prescriptions for sex) who supported the preposterous claims of BADD with such evidence as a letter written by a character in the novel Mazes & Monsters to document that D&D had caused real suicides. Pretty much all the evidence BADD and Radecki ever assembled was nonsense, including Pat Pulling deceptively editing newspaper articles to misrepresent their content. They pulled these shenanigans under oath in court, too.

Thomas Radecki - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Michael A. Stackpole: The Pulling Report

Patricia Pulling is a woman known for having mounted a brave campaign against the diabolical forces that have been unleashed in America today. A licensed private Investigator, she is the founder of Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons and the author of The Devils Web

www.rpgstudies.net

BADD

"Bothered about Dungeons and Dragons" (BADD) were an organization founded by Patricia Pulling (1948–1997). The organization was founded after Pulling's son Irving "Bink" Pulling committed suicide in 1982. It continued until she died in 1997.

rationalwiki.org