D&D 5E Ability Score Increases (I've changed my mind.)

[Maxperson]

Arrogance, yes. Ignorance, no.

I'm not seeing where ignorance comes in to what I said. Would you elaborate further?

I'm not wholly against evil factions with ugly ideas that we can smite for XP, but the softly generalized sentiment that elves view themselves as racially superior is... reductive? Unsure what word I'm looking for, but racism isn't something we want to promote among the good guys.

I don't think I've ever(going back to 1983) seen someone apply that to all elves. I have seen some play their individual elves that way, but then racists exists in all races I would think. Heck, I've occasionally done that, but it has been my choice for that specific PC, not one where I viewed all elves as viewing themselves as superior to other races.

 

[Yaarel]

No. A type does not have to be racist.

This is also false, since types are not all racist.

This isn't real life where "types" are fictionally created and then applied to a people of a certain race. In fantasy play, types can exist as real things, in which case no racism is involved at all.

The literary tropes of this fantasy game come from an era, when many people are avowed racists and even "Darwinian" scientists are thinking about a taxonomy of other human cultures as separate species. Racism is the worldview that D&D fantasizes about.

The authors of Cthulhu, Conan, Lord of the Rings, and so on, are all to some degree imperialist, racist, supremacists. Even the ones trying to pioneer a way out of it, are still part of a world of racist assumptions.

So this fictional game is a play about racist assumptions.

It is like a game about: "pretend that all of these unjust ideas are true".

 

[Scribe]

The literary tropes of this fantasy game come from an era, when many people are avowed racists and even "Darwinian" scientists are thinking about a taxonomy of other human cultures as separate species. Racism is the worldview that D&D fantasizes about.

The authors of Cthulhu, Conan, Lord of the Rings, and so on, are all to some degree imperialist, racist, supremacists.

So this fictional game is a play about racist assumptions.

In some ways, yes.

Which is why they need a whole new setting.

 

[Maxperson]

The literary tropes of this fantasy game come from an era, when many people are avowed racists and even "Darwinian" scientists are thinking about a taxonomy of other human cultures as separate species. Racism is the worldview that D&D fantasizes about.

I don't agree, and in any case what the designers had in their brains didn't come across in print(with a very few exceptions like the Vistani) or in anyone I've seen play the game, so it's pretty irrelevant. They don't get to determine how we play the game. My haughty elf cannot be validly equated with racist unless I choose for it to be racist as an individual.

So this fictional game is a play about racist assumptions.

Nope! They don't get to determine how we play the game. Not one bit.

 

[Yaarel]

Some people playing a haughty elf play racist elves. Some do not. Don't assume that haughty=racism, because it doesn't. I've seen many simply played as arrogant.

I have seen players making a "haughty" elf without conveying racism − perhaps more like pretending to be British aristocracy − and elitist.

My objection is against the descriptions in the core rules that are racist and supremacist. Not against the players who might have other concepts for their characters.

 

[Yaarel]

Nope! They don't get to determine how we play the game. Not one bit.

These literary tropes already did determine how we play the game.

We made a game about their racism.

 

[mrpopstar]

I have seen players making a "haughty" elf without conveying racism − perhaps more like pretending to be British aristocracy.

Elves can trace their cultural lineage to the noble classes of fey courts, so a dose of aristocratic worldview isn't wholly without precedent.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm not wholly against evil factions with ugly ideas that we can smite for XP, but the softly generalized sentiment that elves view themselves as racially superior is... reductive? Unsure what word I'm looking for, but racism isn't something we want to promote among the good guys.

Or perhaps we should just get rid of simplistic idea of good guys vs bad guys? Perhaps we could have nuanced civilisations that have some good features and some bad features?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Or perhaps we should just get rid of simplistic idea of good guys vs bad guys? Perhaps we could have nuanced civilisations that have some good features and some bad features?

You cant have civilizations without setting. This is more support for a new core setting that features these elements.

 

[Yaarel]

Or perhaps we should just get rid of simplistic idea of good guys vs bad guys? Perhaps we could have nuanced civilisations that have some good features and some bad features?

These kinds of worldview decisions pertain more to a setting, less to the core rules.

In my view, a strength and a weakness tend to be the same thing.

For example, being an introvert has both advantages and disadvantages, and being an extrovert has both advantages and disadvantages.