D&D General New WOTC racism allegations regarding Hadozee and Spelljammer

[Charlaquin]

I must have missed all those minstrel accusations when the core book with this halfling image came out.

Sometimes someone with a lute is just a iconic bard.

You might not have noticed that this character is not a member of a monkey race that was formerly enslaved by the same people who uplifted them from beasthood. But everyone else did.

 

[Charlaquin]

And? Hadozee are not monkeys or even real world people either but a fictional simean species. That they are uplifted is basically standard and nothing different than "a god made them like they are" which is the origin story of nearly(?) all D&D creatures.
Which also makes everyone slave to the gods when you apply the same strict definition of what a slave is to other species.

I don’t think “was literally enslaved by an evil wizard” is a particularly strict definition of what a slave is… It certainly isn’t a definition that any race other than the Hadozee and arguably the Gith fit.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Now that the Planet of the Apes reference has been explicitly spelled-out I can see what they were going for, but honestly I can't believe they even dared to bring back the hadozee in the first place.

Completely missed that was back with dwarves and I remember folks having a bit of issue with Tremorsense despite the fact that it just seems a fun one

Yeah, artisan's tools is def on the 'stick it in backgrounds' level

I saw the criticisms of dwarves having tremorsense and really it seems like that for many of them the problem is D&D having distinct non-human people groups with distinct sets of powers at all. Instead, they'd rather every character essentially be a mutant with traits that aren't inherited or passed on. That way they can still play people who aren't normal humans but not have to worry about any of the baggage from fantasy races/ancestries/lineages/species/etc.

 

[DarkCrisis]

They tried that once, with 4e, and the fans emphatically rejected it.

4Es lore wasn’t the issue (despite completely screwing up Faerun).

It was that it was a pen and paper MMO that no one asked for.

Funny enough I believe if 4E came out now, it would be beloved by the modern gamer. It just came out to soon

 

[Charlaquin]

You would think hiding 2 clans of good drow (who are so much better than the evil drow. Nicer city, nicer food, better magic, everything!)) for thousands of years would be seen as a win for Eilistraee if she was involved.

I really cant comprehend why they dont use Eilistraee. Of course I dont understand most of what WotC does.

There was a definite push to make evil races inherently, irredeemably evil in early 5e.

 

[Umbran]

Which is exactly the problem. It clearly demonstrates that despite saying they’re aiming to be more diverse and inclusive, evidently “everyone involved” didn’t include any people of color (or if it did they weren’t listened to).

Saying they are aiming to be more diverse does not mean they will then hit the target always and forever. It has to be a process, and there will be some stumbles. Instant perfection isn't something we should expect.

I'm not even comfortable with the implication that absolutely any person of color who saw the depiction would have noted it.

 

[Umbran]

4Es lore wasn’t the issue (despite completely screwing up Faerun).

It was that it was a pen and paper MMO that no one asked for.

Mod Note:

This is soooo not the thread to rehash edition war arguments. This thread is NOT going to be about 4e. Please don't continue on that line.

 

[grimslade]

4Es lore wasn’t the issue (despite completely screwing up Faerun).

It was that it was a pen and paper MMO that no one asked for.

Funny enough I believe if 4E came out now, it would be beloved by the modern gamer. It just came out to soon

4E was a solid game. It had some quirks that made it too different from where the game was with 3.5E. The weird naming conventions did not help endear 4E. I still love Picador goblins though, fight me!
Edit: Posted before the warning Sorry folks.

 

[Charlaquin]

Actually the Nentir Vale is pretty well regarded even by people who hate 4e.

It has come to be so, now that we have a bit of distance from 4e. But I was there at the height of the edition war. It was definitely not well regarded by 4e’s detractors at the time.

 

[Ixal]

You were literally saying religion (at least in a D&D world) is slavery and trying to equate a Halfling holding a lute with the previously-enslaved monkey people doing a Minstrel Show-like pose.

Holy mother forking shirtballs. Are you seriously accusing people that don't agree with you of being racist? Equating black people with apes/monkeys has been a core part of white supremacist propaganda for literal centuries. That's what we're trying to avoid.

It's a "white savior" type of story. That's the problem.

The only real link to slavery is that a powerful wizard created, or more specifically uplifted, them with the intention of them being servants and do his bidding. Exchange "powerful wizard" with "god" and you have the creation myth of basically every species in D&D. And considering how D&D deities behave there is not much difference between deity and (very) powerful wizard.
So why is wizard uplifting them slavery and god creating a species is not? Especially as the hadozee never served as slaves in the backstory but escaped before that.

As for what I equate. I equate a stereotypical halfling bard to a stereotypical hadozee bard. If you only see the hadozee picture and the minstrel show one then yes, you would see a connection. But that completely ignores how bards are portrayed in D&D. With lutes, colourful clothes and prancing around. Just like the hadozee does. If you put the halfing bard picture next to the minstrel show one and would ask people if they see a connection they would also say yes.

No idea where you get the white savior from. Not only were the hadozee not passive in the backstory we also do not know the skin color of the wizard and the apprentices. You are assigning the roles and skin colors based on what narrative you want to see.

So maybe instead of automatically equating hadozee with real world people and assigning everyone in the story a skin color to fit a certain narrative, how about taking a step back and seeing the hadozee from a fantasy/D&D angle without forcing a specific narrative on them? A fantasy animal inspired species which exists everywhere in fantasy and scifi books and stories which have a rather common trope background, for scifi, and are using the common D&D classes, including the prancing bard?