D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[theCourier]

Two friends teasing each other playfully and that is what you come out with....no words.

Two friends teasing each other with "racist tropes" as YOU yourself said it are still being racist. Sorry, you can't act all shook when I'm using the words you said to describe the racist thing you described, that's all you.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Media and stories shape us. That's why we use them. That's why they exist.

So does religion, philosophy, ethics courses, our parents, our schools, etc. We aren’t just all the stories poured into us by media. This is why the whole very special episode failed to change behavior, why just say no failed gif my generation. We aren’t just passive receptacles for art. And I think it actually gets very dangerous when you think you can engineer society by making sure only the right art is acceptable. And there is a difference between full on propaganda and a story not trying to persuade people to action.

 

[Chaosmancer]

To be fair, there's nothing (or nearly nothing) left of those first cultures. The cultures we're actually dealing with in Forgotten Realms are not nearly so old. And numerous massive catastrophes must have had serious impacts on societal development. There's nothing even remotely simlar to the fall of Netheril, for example, in the Real World.

Well, partially true. That timeline includes the Seldarine War (-30,000 DR), which is when Elven culture "started". And while they faced disasters, they weren't enough to erase their history. The Elves still draw strong bonds back to those elven cultures from that time.

Heck, even if you only start counting from the end of Crown Wars (a three thousand year war) you still end with nearly 10,500 years of history, and the peak of elvish civilization was -24,000 to -12,000 (twelve thousand years) where they upraised other cultures, including the human netherese, who became a superpower AFTER the Crown Wars which went from -12,000 to -9,000, but also other races.

And yet, despite this strong line of history, elves are a lot of the problem when it comes to racism in the realms. So, I still don't see how "they haven't been around long enough" is a valid point. Especially since Star Trek acceptance started AFTER contact with aliens, meaning it was only a period of about 200 years, meanwhile DnD species in Faerun never existed without contact with other species.

 

[Yaarel]

elves are a lot of the problem when it comes to racism in the realms

Yeah. When I read the old school D&D descriptions about elves, my reaction is, ... ick!

The racism is quite extremist.

The obsession with blood purity, the hostility against "half-breeds", using skin color to identify Good and Evil, the obsession with special eye color, and much more.

Ick.

I actually dont fault the authors. In my eyes they are subverting and relativizing reallife racism. Using reallife racist tropes and tactics but on behalf of an imaginary nonhuman along with obsessions about eye colors like "violet" or "amber", makes nonsense out of the reallife racist impulses that think this way.

Nevertheless.

This kind of overt − even obsessive − racism doesnt age well. In our millennium, it comes across as disgusting.

I am glad 2014 5e tends to minimize these racist D&D traditions.

I hope 2024 deletes this fantasy racism entirely.

 

[Hussar]

Yeah. When I read the old school D&D descriptions about elves, my reaction is, ... ick!

The racism is quite extremist.

The obsession with blood purity, the hostility against "half-breeds", using skin color to identify Good and Evil, the obsession with special eye color, and much more.

Ick.

I actually dont fault the authors. In my eyes they are subverting and relativizing reallife racism. Using reallife racist tropes and tactics but on behalf of an imaginary nonhuman along with obsessions about eye colors like "violet" or "amber", makes nonsense out of the reallife racist impulses that think this way.

Nevertheless.

This kind of overt − even obsessive − racism doesnt age well. In our millennium, it comes across as disgusting.

I am glad 2014 5e tends to minimize these racist D&D traditions.

I hope 2024 deletes this fantasy racism entirely.

Well said.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Two friends teasing each other with "racist tropes" as YOU yourself said it are still being racist. Sorry, you can't act all shook when I'm using the words you said to describe the racist thing you described, that's all you.

You're essentially calling comics who make similar jokes racist. I do not share that viewpoint.

 

[theCourier]

You're essentially calling comics who make similar jokes racist. I do not share that viewpoint.

Don't care if you do, that's what they are.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yeah. When I read the old school D&D descriptions about elves, my reaction is, ... ick!

The racism is quite extremist.

The obsession with blood purity, the hostility against "half-breeds", using skin color to identify Good and Evil, the obsession with special eye color, and much more.

Ick.

I actually dont fault the authors. In my eyes they are subverting and relativizing reallife racism. Using reallife racist tropes and tactics but on behalf of an imaginary nonhuman along with obsessions about eye colors like "violet" or "amber", makes nonsense out of the reallife racist impulses that think this way.

Nevertheless.

This kind of overt − even obsessive − racism doesnt age well. In our millennium, it comes across as disgusting.

I am glad 2014 5e tends to minimize these racist D&D traditions.

I hope 2024 deletes this fantasy racism entirely.

This may just be a generational divide but I just don't understand this reflex of disgust towards races in a setting having something like racism towards each other. It is just meant to help highlight the elves arrogance I think and also to inject something that does exist in the world, but they aren't advocating that humans behave like elves towards half elves. I also wouldn't call it an obsession, just a detail that helps add some character to the racial entries.

 

[Yaarel]

This may just be a generational divide but I just don't understand this reflex of disgust towards races in a setting having something like racism towards each other.

Because racism isnt as interesting and as fun as you think?

I dont want to play a game about something that is unfun or worse.

 

[Hussar]

This may just be a generational divide but I just don't understand this reflex of disgust towards races in a setting having something like racism towards each other. It is just meant to help highlight the elves arrogance I think and also to inject something that does exist in the world, but they aren't advocating that humans behave like elves towards half elves. I also wouldn't call it an obsession, just a detail that helps add some character to the racial entries.

Is it you don't understand, or simply refuse to accept what is explained to you? Repeatedly.

It's not a "reflex" to note that the racism on display is virtually word for word identical to real world racism, such as the description of orcs. There are a million ways to "highlight" elven arrogance, if that's something you think is important, other than using mixed race stand ins, particularly when this specific brand of racism is something that very real people have to deal with in the very real world on a very real daily basis.

Whether it's the direct "one drop" rules in 2e descriptions of half elves meaning that it is actually literally impossible under 2e rules to have half elves actually be able to have mixed children - the only way for a half elf to have a half elven baby in 2e would be to have children with full blooded elves. Everything else would just result in a human. Oh, yeah, that's a fantastic look.

Or it's the direct description of how half-elves are automatically misfits in 5e and cannot ever be just accepted. Again, not a great look.