D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[Maxperson]

Aren't the drow a myth? Gygax said so, anyway.

Do you mean are they based on a real world mythological race?

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Having a fantasy about something is your fixation, not mine.

Normalizing and inspiring bad behavior still leads to bad outcomes, even if it isn't specifically enacting a fantasy.

This is not to say all media must always be squeaky clean, but it does mean that people who create content have to make choices, to choose their impacts. And it should be seen as okay for them to do so.

So the "Bothered about Dungeons and Dragons" crew had a point then?

 

[Bedrockgames]

40+ years of D&D play. Hundreds of people played with, and I have yet to see anyone normalize bad behavior in the real world because of D&D lore, or be inspired by D&D lore to engage in bad behavior in the real world.

This doesn't seem like a common or even uncommon problem. It seems quite rare. Rare enough to be a people problem and not a game problem.

Yeah, I don't think it normalized bad behavior any more than heavy metal made want to worship the devil. I think we are erecting strange taboos around media and its ability to influence people. I mean it is one thing if there is blatant material you don't want kids seeing or something, but killing orcs in a fantasy game isn't going to impact he world in a negative way. Sifting through games to find those kinds of problems, is I think just creating problems in order to have them

 

[MGibster]

So the "Bothered about Dungeons and Dragons" crew had a point then?

That was one of my first thought when the X-Card was introduced. Well, my second thought. As with all things having to do with norms, it's complicated. A lot of folks in 1984 were embroiled in the Satanic panic of the day and were concerned D&D might lead to murder, suicide, witchcraft, or otherwise damaging the psyches of impressionable young minds. The moral panic ended in the 1990s, and such concerns were fodder for jokes by 2014.

These days we have different concerns. We live in an environment where being inclusive is important to more people and we're more aware of mental illnesses and sympathetic to those who have one. While I'm not a fan of the X-Card, I can't hold it against someone for trying to come up with tools to help people. Even I have a Session Zero discussion with my players before I run a horror game, something I never would have thought of back in 1994. But then I don't really view it as a safety tool in the sense that I'm worried someone's psyche might be damage. I just want everyone to have fun and there are some subjects people don't want to see in their games, me included, and that's okay.

 

[Hussar]

Ah the good old “I’ve never seen it so it must not exist” response. You asked the question, got the answer, don’t like the answer so keep asking the question hoping for a new answer.

Good times.

 

[Scribe]

40+ years of D&D play. Hundreds of people played with, and I have yet to see anyone normalize bad behavior in the real world because of D&D lore, or be inspired by D&D lore to engage in bad behavior in the real world.

This doesn't seem like a common or even uncommon problem. It seems quite rare. Rare enough to be a people problem and not a game problem.

I've been playing violent games and video games my entire life. I've yet to go to jail for murder.

Crazy, I know.

I think we are erecting strange taboos around media and its ability to influence people.

Its gotten very very weird.

 

[Maxperson]

Ah the good old “I’ve never seen it so it must not exist” response. You asked the question, got the answer, don’t like the answer so keep asking the question hoping for a new answer.

Good times.

That's not what I said. What I said was to paraphrase, "I haven't seen it over 40 years and hundreds of players, so it must not be common or even uncommon."

If it were common or uncommon, the odds of my not encountering it over that period of time and that many players is probably around the same as my winning the Powerball.

So yeah, I'm very confident that it's a rare people problem and not a game lore problem.

 

[Hussar]

That's not what I said. What I said was to paraphrase, "I haven't seen it over 40 years and hundreds of players, so it must not be common or even uncommon."

If it were common or uncommon, the odds of my not encountering it over that period of time and that many players is probably around the same as my winning the Powerball.

So yeah, I'm very confident that it's a rare people problem and not a game lore problem.

Yup. That's EXACTLY how statistics work.

Or, to put it another way, you've played with about .0001% of gamers out there. But, sure, your personal circle of friends and acquaintances represent a significant sampling of the total population of gamers.

 

[Teemu]

What's the issue? You can still have evil bloodthirsty orcs and nasty demonic drow and so on. When encountering the classic orc group, use NPC stat blocks like berserker and cultist etc. No mage or noble. If you wanted a group of violent dwarves with the previous MM you'd use those stat blocks from the 2014 MM and Volo's.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yup. That's EXACTLY how statistics work.

Or, to put it another way, you've played with about .0001% of gamers out there. But, sure, your personal circle of friends and acquaintances represent a significant sampling of the total population of gamers.

It’s less representative than that. Even a tiny sample would be a random sample, but the people in our own bubble are far more likely to share similar views.