D&D (2024) What new jargon do you want to replace "Race"?

[Scott Christian]

Lets not look at the Drizzt books as a positive example. The Drizzt books, and to a greater extent, the drow race itself, are just dripping with racism and fetishized misogamy.

Do you really think "All Drow are inherently evil and have no free will, and we kill them on sight, except for our buddy Drizzt, he's one of the good ones." is really a good look for D&D.

I think that is a look for D&D. Not all looks. Not the look. But a look.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

And that fun and humor are a big part of the hobby.

For a company, they are also extremely unsafe grounds to tread. Unless really over the top like Wednesday, there is a strong risk of ruffling feathers with jokes that will be deemed offensive. Someone said that humor didn't convey in print and its very possible to make a mistake and "that was just humour, sorry" won't work. Which doesn't mean one can't have humourous game, because knowing your players you know what is fun for the group. For WotC, trying to be a multinational mainstream company, is this worth the risk? I'd say no, unless going from the blandest of jokes.

Heck, WoW Vanilla Cinematic and Burning Crusade Cinematic have 4.5 and 7.1 Million views respectively on youtube, and thats not including all the views 'in game'.

I highly highly doubt between WoW and LoTR there exists anyone in any sphere even close to 'Fantasy Fan' who doesnt have preconceptions of what an Orc is.

Oh, and add in GW Orc/Orks, just for fun.

They might have different preconception, though. Saruman creating uruk-hai in vats, in the film, make it clear that there are apparently no babies: once born, they are affixed with their military equipment. It echoed the discourse that orcs were physically corrupted elves by the torture of Morgoth: no breeding really, but "created", so this could be a preconception from a book reader. It won't be the same ideas about orcs with people exposed to WoW or GW.

 

[Scott Christian]

Lets not look at the Drizzt books as a positive example. The Drizzt books, and to a greater extent, the drow race itself, are just dripping with racism and fetishized misogamy.

Do you really think "All Drow are inherently evil and have no free will, and we kill them on sight, except for our buddy Drizzt, he's one of the good ones." is really a good look for D&D.

Thanks for avoiding the question:

Why can't a GOD make a species evil? Why can't magic make a species evil? Why can't curses make a species evil?

 

[Bedrockgames]

For a company, they are also extremely unsafe grounds to tread. Unless really over the top like Wednesday, there is a strong risk of ruffling feathers with jokes that will be deemed offensive. Someone said that humor didn't convey in print and its very possible to make a mistake and "that was just humour, sorry" won't work. Which doesn't mean one can't have humourous game, because knowing your players you know what is fun for the group. For WotC, trying to be a multinational mainstream company, is this worth the risk? I'd say no, unless going from the blandest of jokes.

I would hope this isn't the case. Humor has been vital to D&D for ages. Obviously these aren't a joke every minute, but some levity helps change up the tone nicely and create an engaging text. I get that they obviously have to navigate the culture, but going the direction of humorlessness, may be safe, but it also risks making books far less readable and enjoyable.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Thanks for avoiding the question:

Why can't a GOD make a species evil? Why can't magic make a species evil? Why can't curses make a species evil?

Because if they are evil (or good, that's the same problem) as a species, then they can't have free will (since an individual member of this species can't choose to do anything other than evil). And if they are deprived of free will, they are not evil, they are Unaligned. I reiterate this is more a problem with the alignment system in D&D than anything else.

As a illustration, sure a god could gift his creation with the condition of turning into a rabid killer at the sight of a human, leading to a murderous frenzy. Having people like that as your neighbour would suck. You'd probably don't like them (anymore than having another apex predator in your vicinity). It is reasonable that you'd be justified in killing them, especially since there is no curing this condition. But they wouldn't be evil, just cursed.

The problem is compounded when you have a PC coming from this species, but saying "err, no, I am not like every single other member of my species, I am fine with humans, thanks."

 

[Scribe]

They might have different preconception, though. Saruman creating uruk-hai in vats, in the film, make it clear that there are apparently no babies: once born, they are affixed with their military equipment. It echoed the discourse that orcs were physically corrupted elves by the torture of Morgoth: no breeding really, but "created", so this could be a preconception from a book reader. It won't be the same ideas about orcs with people exposed to WoW or GW.

Thats a deeper cut than most will take I believe.

If you asked 100 people who are not 'forum using chads' what an Orc is. I'd put money on the number one answer being 'aggressive, warlike, mini hulks, and green'.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Because if they are evil (or good, that's the same problem) as a species, then they can't have free will (since they can't choose to do anything other than evil). And if they are deprived of free will, they are not evil, they are Unaligned. I reiterate this is more a problem with the alignment system in D&D than anything else.

This is a somewhat separate issue because you could strip away all talk about demihuman races and just talk about human free will. But I do think this depends. If being evil is just an inclination and not a forgone conclusion, then I think you could still make a case for them having free will, even if is constrained by some kind of instinct, habit, etc. I think a good comparison is some of the problems with humanity people have raised. We don't have the best track record and the question of whether humans are naturally inclined towards good or towards evil has been debated in the past. And one answer has been, yes humans naturally incline towards evil but they can hone themselves into more morally perfect beings through effort. So I could see a world that has a race of sapient beetle people who are inclined towards Lawfulness, because it is like a natural impulse. But that inclination doesn't mean they don't also have will that can override the impulse (it might mean by and large the bulk of the beetle people don't seem to behave in Chaotic ways).

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

This is a somewhat separate issue because you could strip away all talk about demihuman races and just talk about human free will. But I do think this depends. If being evil is just an inclination and not a forgone conclusion, then I think you could still make a case for them having free will, even if is constrained by some kind of instinct, habit, etc. I think a good comparison is some of the problems with humanity people have raised. We don't have the best track record and the question of whether humans are naturally inclined towards good or towards evil has been debated in the past. And one answer has been, yes humans naturally incline towards evil but they can hone themselves into more morally perfect beings through effort. So I could see a world that has a race of sapient beetle people who are inclined towards Lawfulness, because it is like a natural impulse. But that inclination doesn't mean they don't also have will that can override the impulse (it might mean by and large the bulk of the beetle people don't seem to behave in Chaotic ways).

I generally agree with you. I also think that most people in this debate seem to consider humans to be 100% free-willed, with no instinctive drive at all, or they take human insctinct as a baseline for any sentient species that one could meet in D&D. So "a drive to do X", where X is a behaviour that would be labelled evil, is dismissed as a lack of free will, despite our own drives (sexual drives, overeating drives, fear...) governing our behaviour more often than we'd like.

This is compounded by the fact that probably every adjective, even positive one, have been historically affixed to a human group, so if you say "they tend to be X", there is a strong chance that you're copying a racist/xenophobic trope somewhere.

 

[Bill Zebub]

What you're suggesting is not the same thing as deflecting criticism, which is more of a "get off our backs" kind of philosophy. I'd love for them to focus on making the game better, and avoiding harm as much as possible within that.

From my point of view they are doing both of those things.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is compounded by the fact that probably every adjective, even positive one, have been historically affixed to a human group, so if you say "they tend to be X", there is a strong chance that you're copying a racist/xenophobic trope somewhere.

But that is why things like intentions, context, the specifics, etc all matter. If you are talking about a very clearly non-human group, and you aren't doing it in way where it is meant to be some kind of allegory for human racial tensions, I think it can work. One issue is we are really boxing ourselves in if literally any adjective is going to be a problem.