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

[Remathilis]

If you do that, it wasn't because of orcs. It's because for whatever reason you don't like D&D players. The orc language has nothing to do with you saying that about D&D players. Correlation does not equal causation. It would be coincidence that you and the orcs are using similar language.

I never stated causation was a factor. You (and people who have been arguing about it) have tried to make it about causation.

But let's extend the metaphors. Let's take all the negative stereotypes about gamers. They are antisocial. They are nerds. They are fat. They don't understand hygiene. They are weaklings who can't do a single pushup. They hate girls. Now, let's make a monster named Grognard, make them chaotic evil, and put them in the Monster Manual as creatures to fight or bully. Let's make nearly every encounter with them one where the characters are supposed to beat them up or mock them. And we'll say "but some grognards can be good people".

How do you feel about my grognard? I'm sure people will not connect them to real gamers. You certainly wouldn't be offended that they use the same language used to mock gamers in the real world. They're made up. Silly elf game. Get rekked grognard!

I mean, the game didn't tell me to go beat up gamers. It just said I'm justified in disliking fat, smelly, awkward creatures.

No offense, right?

 

[Gradine]

I answered that much earlier in the thread. Humans by nature look for patterns and associations. That often leads to us "finding" patterns and associations that aren't really there. We make such connections, ignoring that correlation does not equal causation, all the time.

If literally anything negative is said about a group in the game, we can if we look find a real life group that has had that negative thing said about it. That doesn't make the game group about or connected to the real life group.

So the problem is the "'finding' patterns and associations" goes both ways. This is why stereotypes are also bad; just because the intent behind it isn't to further racism doesn't mean that people won't still make those associations. Best to avoid those specific associations altogether.

Because the game is enjoyable, and I wish people could see it as such. I very much am Team Elf Game.

So I read this, particularly the bolded part, as saying that those of us who prefer our RPGs to have more nuance and better reflect the world as we would like to see it are having Badwrongfun. Is that your intention?

 

[Scribe]

So I read this, particularly the bolded part, as saying that those of us who prefer our RPGs to have more nuance and better reflect the world as we would like to see it are having Badwrongfun. Is that your intention?

Not in the least. Add as much nuance as you like, and if its enriching ones life, and enjoyable, great.

There is no nuance in the 5.5 Orc. Its a "Good" entity now. We have simply swung from one end of the pendulum to the other, and the game (not lore, not nuanced, just pure game) is less for it imo.

Wizards is not in the business of providing a nuanced, deep, and interesting Fantasy world, that much seems obvious to me.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I never stated causation was a factor. You (and people who have been arguing about it) have tried to make it about causation.

But let's extend the metaphors. Let's take all the negative stereotypes about gamers. They are antisocial. They are nerds. They are fat. They don't understand hygiene. They are weaklings who can't do a single pushup. They hate girls. Now, let's make a monster named Grognard, make them chaotic evil, and put them in the Monster Manual as creatures to fight or bully. Let's make nearly every encounter with them one where the characters are supposed to beat them up or mock them. And we'll say "but some grognards can be good people".

How do you feel about my grognard? I'm sure people will not connect them to real gamers. You certainly wouldn't be offended that they use the same language used to mock gamers in the real world. They're made up. Silly elf game. Get rekked grognard!

I mean, the game didn't tell me to go beat up gamers. It just said I'm justified in disliking fat, smelly, awkward creatures.

No offense, right?

I think the key difference here is you are literally using it to insert gamers (which is clear by calling them grognards) so that is more commentary than anything else. But if you had fat, lazy and scholarly evil monsters, I don't think people would care if they were cool enough. I mean if orcs were clearly an intentional attempt to attack a real world race, people would be bothered. But orcs for most people are just monsters to use in the game. And since they are monsters, you are going to be drawing on negative traits like aggressive, cruel, arrogant, etc.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

So if I say "orcs are immoral creatures unable to determine right from wrong, therefore the game is ok with you destroying them" and then I say "D&D players are immoral creatures unable to determine right from wrong." You can't fill in the rest of the sentence?

The separation of fiction from real world is something that has a lot of science behind it. I don't know that you can simply extrapolate from fictional orcs to real humans so easily. In psychology, we have something called the the "Perky Effect." This is an effect discovered in 1910, link below, that shows the brain's ability to distinguish imaginary from reality. She, Cheves Perky, showed how these two things interact and, in a cool experiment, showed how to actually confuse the brain. Simply put, words aren't enough.

You can have a person imagine something, and then project that thing faintly on to a screen, and the person will think they are imagining the projection. This is because the brain dismisses things that are inline with what its imagining as imaginary. If you show a photo of that same thing, this mistake is not made by the brain. Cool right?

So for the brain to confuse fictional orcs with real D&D players, you have to do one of two things. You have to make the orcs look and seem real, or make the players match the imagination, neither happen in the course of D&D. Maybe if you project the player faces faintly onto a screen mid session, people would be confused and think they are imagining the players. Other than that the brain can distinguish the Orcs as fiction and the players as real.

But even in this scenario where we try to fool the brain, by projecting the players on to the screen. The brain is only fooled into thinking its imagining those faces. It is not confused that those faces are something they are not. It is well documented how the brain recognizes someone. For the brain to confuse a person as an orc, would take pretty wild circumstances.

So I think your statement, if filled as you imply is would be, is not inline with human psychology. It presumes that if you think anything about something that stands on two legs, you think that about all things that stand on two legs. And it assumes the brain cannot tell the difference between imaginary and real. Both are known to be false.

It would take a very mentally ill person to believe your second statement because they believed the first. As far as our brains are concerned, they are completely different things. One fiction creature we've never seen, and one real person we have a connection to.


Source: Mental Imagery > The Perky Experiment (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2021 Edition)

 

[Gradine]

There is no nuance in the 5.5 Orc. Its a "Good" entity now. We have simply swung from one end of the pendulum to the other, and the game (not lore, not nuanced, just pure game) is less for it imo.

Wizards is not in the business of providing a nuanced, deep, and interesting Fantasy world, that much seems obvious to me.

Needless to say, I disagree with your assessment as listed here. The 5.5 Orc is more nuanced the Orc has been in the history of D&D, outside of edge cases like Eberron (which clearly inspired the new Orc take). I don't see the game posing them as "just good" just as I don't believe the game posits every human or elf as "just good".

 

[Bedrockgames]

The separation of fiction from real world is something that has a lot of science behind it. I don't know that you can simply extrapolate from fictional orcs to real humans so easily. In psychology, we have something called the the "Perky Effect." This is an effect discovered in 1910, link below, that shows the brain's ability to distinguish imaginary from reality. She, Cheves Perky, showed how these two things interact and, in a cool experiment, showed how to actually confuse the brain. Simply put, words aren't enough.

You can have a person imagine something, and then project that thing faintly on to a screen, and the person will think they are imagining the projection. This is because the brain dismisses things that are inline with what its imagining as imaginary. If you show a photo of that same thing, this mistake is not made by the brain. Cool right?

So for the brain to confuse fictional orcs with real D&D players, you have to do one of two things. You have to make the orcs look and seem real, or make the players match the imagination, neither happen in the course of D&D. Maybe if you project the player faces faintly onto a screen mid session, people would be confused and think they are imagining the players. Other than that the brain can distinguish the Orcs as fiction and the players as real.

But even in this scenario where we try to fool the brain, by projecting the players on to the screen. The brain is only fooled into thinking its imagining those faces. It is not confused that those faces are something they are not. It is well documented how the brain recognizes someone. For the brain to confuse a person as an orc, would take pretty wild circumstances.

So I think your statement, if filled as you imply is would be, is not inline with human psychology. It presumes that if you think anything about something that stands on two legs, you think that about all things that stand on two legs. And it assumes the brain cannot tell the difference between imaginary and real. Both are known to be false.

It would take a very mentally ill person to believe your second statement because they believed the first. As far as our brains are concerned, they are completely different things. One fiction creature we've never seen, and one real person we have a connection to.


Source: Mental Imagery > The Perky Experiment (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Fall 2021 Edition)

 

[Remathilis]

Y'all keep believing what you want. I'm done. I gotta get ready for game tonight. Can't wait to beat up some fat, smelly antisocial gorgnards tonight. Fictionally, of course.

 

[npick03]

There is no nuance in the 5.5 Orc. Its a "Good" entity now.

The 5.5 Orc is more nuanced the Orc has been in the history of D&D,

I don't feel like they are either of these things.

I haven't pored over every page of the PBH or Monster Manual, so maybe I missed something, but 5.5 Orcs seem to be less a "good" entity and more a nonentity. There isn't nuance so much as there is "Orcs are totally non-controversial now, we promise. Please stop talking about them."

Nuance for me at least requires more than two paragraphs and some cowboy art.

And I like the cowboy art! I just wish they told us how they went from Volo's Guide to gauchos.

 

[Maxperson]

I never stated causation was a factor. You (and people who have been arguing about it) have tried to make it about causation.

But let's extend the metaphors. Let's take all the negative stereotypes about gamers. They are antisocial. They are nerds. They are fat. They don't understand hygiene. They are weaklings who can't do a single pushup. They hate girls. Now, let's make a monster named Grognard, make them chaotic evil, and put them in the Monster Manual as creatures to fight or bully. Let's make nearly every encounter with them one where the characters are supposed to beat them up or mock them. And we'll say "but some grognards can be good people".

How do you feel about my grognard? I'm sure people will not connect them to real gamers. You certainly wouldn't be offended that they use the same language used to mock gamers in the real world. They're made up. Silly elf game. Get rekked grognard!

I mean, the game didn't tell me to go beat up gamers. It just said I'm justified in disliking fat, smelly, awkward creatures.

No offense, right?

A few things. First, I already gave an example of something like this where I am not offended and never will be, because it was coincidental. The goblins from Harry Potter. Despite having similarities with antisemitic references to Jewish people, they were not intended to be representative of those negative depictions, so I find no offense with it.

Second, c'mon man, Grognards? Come up with a name that isn't something directly associated with gamers. You're trying to show that it's not about causation by putting in a name that makes it about causation. Without that name, if it were say some random monster that was CE that was fat, nerdy and had poor hygiene, why would I be offended by it? Lots of monsters are fat, have poor hygiene and/or are weak. The only thing at all in there is nerdy, and so what. It's not supposed to be me, you or anyone else.