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

[billd91]

It has to be. At a point, in the extreme, you end up with no usable words. Remember, I'm not commenting on the words brought up in this thread. I could care less. But the idea that each and every time a person, who we don't know, is potentially offended by a word, we eliminate that word, the outcome is obvious - in the extreme.

So the question really is, where is the line? Earlier in this thread we had a person that is a part of a group cited in one of these changes. They said they didn't agree with the change. So we've already crossed from unanimous among the groups in question.

We can look at this a different way. If I am offended by the word "cheese" because I was born in Wisconsin, should we rename cheese to "Cow Custard" for me? What if 100 people are? Or 1,000? 10,000?

So... your counter argument is a straw man on a slippery slope? Is that what I'm seeing here? Posing the idea that the word cheese might somehow be offensive, or appropriative, or othering seems like a bit of stretch. You got a real example? Or is this just going to be hypothetical and hyperbolic?

 

[DinoInDisguise]

So... your counter argument is a straw man on a slippery slope? Is that what I'm seeing here? Posing the idea that the word cheese might somehow be offensive, or appropriative, or othering seems like a bit of stretch. You got a real example? Or is this just going to be hypothetical and hyperbolic?

I wasn't arguing. I was proposing a thought experiment. If I was arguing, accusing me strawmanning might be against forum rules though. :/

With that I will bow out of this conversation.

 

[pemerton]

I wasn't arguing. I was proposing a thought experiment.

Ridiculous thought experiments don't generate knowledge, nor reasons for action. WotC is making decisions based on its assessment - as a commercial publisher - of the actual world into which it is releasing the works that it publishes.

 

[Bedrockgames]

When OA was released, Hong Kong was a crown colony of the UK. (Just sayin'.) Hawaii was a state of the US. Etc.

This is why I say that you are making assumptions in your references to "the audience", "people", etc.

Sure but how how popular was D&D in hong kong at that time, and Hawaii is just one state. I think they were assuming for most of their audience, a setting like China would be perceived as Exotic

There are some issues with the family, honour and loyalty rules in OA - technical infelicities as well as broader ones. But why do the rules for D&D set in mediaeval times not also include these things? As if honour and family didn't matter to mediaeval European warriors . . .

Sure, that is definitely true. I don't think it is don't out of any kind of maliciousness, but it is a valid point that most cultures have honor codes of some kind and Medieval Europe would have been no exception (to say nothing of all the religious rules people would have followed that we never even think about). To go back to the mafia, they have Omertà. I also think mechanizing honor and loyalty is not always terribly enjoyable at the table (it depends on how it is done I suppose). I get why they had honor (if you watch a Samurai movie that stuff is pretty important to the genre). I think AO is an attempt at genre emulation. Which is why I like it. If you picked up OA or the 3rd edition OA, it was probably because you liked Kung FU, Samurai or wuxia movies and you were hoping to see that at the table (I know that is why I used them). Would have been more interesting to launch OA at the same time as core D&D with more cohesive genre emulation in mind? Probably. That isn't how the history happened though and you already had D&D and its standard fantasy stuff being what it was. So it is this odd thing sometimes. Still, broadly, the core book was largely emulating fantasy in the style of Tolkien and Howard, while OA was giving you stuff that felt more like Lady Snow Blood or Come Drink With Me.

Is OA the greatest genre emulation in the world? No, but I had a lot of fun with it across several campaigns in AD&D and in 3E. What I will say is emulating a genre is hard. And OA had a difficult task because it is emulating like 3 different genres, plus Western Film making genres and books that are derived from those genres. I do think when you are emulating genre, you should try to actually emulate the genre. That is easier if you are just doing one genre. Bringing something like honor in is fine by me, but that gets muddy when you are straddling multiple genres. Just as an example, try watching a samurai movie, then a wuxia movie or kung fu film that features samurai (they are very different experiences).

 

[Bedrockgames]

It took decades to (mostly) end blackface & yellowface in western theater, movies and TV. A decade or two after that, stereotypes began to fall in comics, then RPGs.

So when (seemingly inevitable) pushback occurs in the against changes generally deemed positive by those cultures, it’s not a good look. It’s even worse when the remedy is as easy as asking for input/doing some research.

But the issue is many of these changes, that isn't clear at all. These are still very contested things. Just look at the conversation around phylacteries. I don't think that change has been generally been deemed positive by members of the Jewish community.

Again, no one is arguing we should be doing black face. What we are saying is this constant effort to purge the game of any perceived impurity, and to avert any potential controversy, is potentially taking away cool and interesting elements. To a lot of us, it feels like it has become a somewhat censorious impulse (or at the very least a kind of reflex where we just change or get rid of something the moment it comes up, and when we try to talk about it, it doesn't feel like we have a real conversation but people are just put on the defensive)

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

To be fair, it is just an elf game to me, but I've said people can care about whatever they wish, and if they want the game to be more than that, deeper, and some how say more about whatever, and it serves them to have it do so? Great.

Meanwhile, I'll be rolling dice and killing (or not!) whatever the monsters or statblocks they represent, I'm up against.

Yes, but the original meaning of the phrase, at least in my experience, meant “you’re making a mountain out of a molehill.” Not “stop talking about this, because it’s just a game and you shouldn’t care about issues like this.”

It is just a game. I think there’s a time and a place for “it’s an elf game” arguments. But not to shut down discussions of inclusivity.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Cook did his best to write OA with respect and interest in Asian cultures, and he did his best to research the topic . . . . but society really wasn't having these types of conversations we have today, and the resources available to Cook were limited. Academics certainly were having the discussion on "orientalism" at the time, but not in the mainstream.

I don't take issue with Cook himself, his intent was certainly a positive one.

But today, we can do better. We are having these conversations, we are hearing from more diverse voices, we are aware, we do have the resources. I don't take issue with Cook in the 80s, but I most certainly do take issue with folks who would publish an "Oriental Adventures" today. Or who give pushback on publishers working to make their products more inclusive by removing terms like "race" and "phylactery". Ugh, gets under my skin.

I don't think anyone here would fail to recognize that historical iterations of the game contain certain ...problematic.. elements when viewed through a modern lens; the question becomes one of degree, and in which dimensions: to what extent are we permissive or censorious of legacy traditions, and what should our governing framework be with regard to admission, exclusion, or revision of those components.

I don't claim to be particularly forward-looking in my own gaming practices: my personal aesthetic tends to trump what I recognize as desirable - more progressive - language, expression and sensitivity. It's why I remain on the fence during many of these exchanges: I acknowledge that times have changed, values have shifted, and - rather inevitably - I am incapable of fully grasping that change. There is a kind of wry hypocrisy which nags at me - I might advocate for a certain kind of expression, knowing that it is for the best, but I also like what I like; maybe the difference between me and some other posters here is that I don't try to justify my preferences.

I think it is possible to set aside an attachment to legacy traditions (practices, nomenclature, understanding - whatever) and see the game as a dynamic phenomenon, reflective of contemporary values and sensitivities: this is neither good nor bad, from my perspective. The change is inevitable. But I tend to take a rather longue durée view of all of these things: I'm confident that in 30 years, our successors in RPGs will be horrified by some of the things which we accept today, and brand us as regressive heathens. What are those things? We don't know yet; and that's kind of the point. Although my inkling is that it might involve a general rejection of imagined violence in the game space - who knows?

For me, my love of the game is rooted in the earlier editions. I love AD&D because of its baroque language and its evocative power. I love 3.X because - despite its many failings - it has near-limitless material and is infinitely customizable. I love B/X because it is simply perfect, and I'll fight anyone who claims otherwise.

I'll take these games, with all of their historical warts, their lack of sensitivity, their naivete and their absence of modern values because I'm of that age, and I'm sufficiently discerning to separate the wheat from the chaff - whether it be explicit or implied. I don't need the guardrails.

But I don't, honestly, think that this is the way for the game to flourish and succeed. It needs to move and change. That change has already left me behind - really 15 years ago. And I'm okay with that, because I like what I like, and play what I want.

 

[pemerton]

no one is arguing we should be doing black face. What we are saying is this constant effort to purge the game of any perceived impurity, and to avert any potential controversy, is potentially taking away cool and interesting elements.

There is a certain irony in, or tension between, these two sentences.

When it comes to liches, for instance, what cool element has been "taken away"? You still have all your books. Liches still have their (post-Gygaxian) trait of restoring to life via a soul-preserving effect. WotC have chosen to publish works that don't use the word "phylactery" to describe the soul amulet. That's it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

There is a certain irony in, or tension between, these two sentences.

I don't think that is the case

When it comes to liches, for instance, what cool element has been "taken away"? You still have all your books. Liches still have their (post-Gygaxian) trait of restoring to life via a soul-preserving effect. WotC have chosen to publish works that don't use the word "phylactery" to describe the soul amulet. That's it.

The word phylactery is cool. It is one of the most interesting words used in D&D. I find it a lot more interesting than soul jar or soul amulet. Largely because it has an obscure ring to it (and it is an unusual sounding word)

Also when you are constantly shifting things around, it is confusing to people who already know the system and the settings.

 

[Parmandur]

There is a certain irony in, or tension between, these two sentences.

When it comes to liches, for instance, what cool element has been "taken away"? You still have all your books. Liches still have their (post-Gygaxian) trait of restoring to life via a soul-preserving effect. WotC have chosen to publish works that don't use the word "phylactery" to describe the soul amulet. That's it.

On top of that, the new MM has more Lich varieties than the 2014 edition, and they retain all their evil behavior and disposition. They haven't been toned down, simply removed from a real world ethnic coding.