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

[pemerton]

My point is something very different started happening about ten years it so ago where it became more about minutiae and an intense focus on language and purifying tropes. And it has been done in a way where it is hard to have a conversation. Because if you think people aren’t overreacting by worrying about evil orcs, you get labeled something nasty or associated with a political ideology you have no love for.

The fact that you have been oblivious to these issues for decades does not mean that they did not exist.

The first time I remember reading a critique of Orcs - as they appear in JRRT - on racist/colonialist-type grounds is as a high school student in 1987 or early 1988 (I'm dating by my memory of the house I was living in at the time). I don't recall the name of the book, or its author. But it was from a public library, and so can't have been that esoteric.

I remember writing a letter to Marvel Comics in response to Conan 218 - May 1989 - remonstrating with them for the racism in that issue, and suggesting to them that they did not need to follow in REH's footsteps in that respect. (I don't believe my letter was published.)

Concerns about racism in fantasy are not a new thing.

 

[pemerton]

What are you talking about. It was there, and now it's not there. We had it, and now we don't have it. That's taken away. Just because it's a change, doesn't mean that it hasn't also been taken away.

What do you mean "it was there"? In the books you bought? It's still in them. In your memory? It's still remembered by you.

A new book has been published which doesn't mention it. That hasn't removed the word from anything.

 

[pemerton]

I think it is two different ways of been taken away, after all we do still have it in the 2014 books.
It is difference between 'i bought a great chocolate bar, but before I could eat it my partner took it away' vs 'I used to be able to buy this great chocolate bar, now they don't sell it anymore so my ability to buy it has been taken away'. Chocolate being somewhat temporary not best match, but hopefully can see the difference. Could apply it at some extent to some Doctor Who episodes removed from streaming, even if I have the DVDs, in a sense still been taken away from me as I can no longer stream.
I think in this instance it is people using the first definition running into people using the second definition, and never the twain shall meet.

In your example of a consumer good, the opportunity to purchase it no longer exists.

What opportunity no longer exists in this case? The complainers already have libraries of books talking about liches' phylacteries, so they were hardly setting out to buy more of them. They haven't lost a consumption opportunity.

They still have the opportunity to talk and write about liches' phylacteries to their hearts' content.

So I don't agree that this is a clash of your two definitions. I think it's very hard to articulate an opportunity that has been lost.

 

[Parmandur]

The first time I remember reading a critique of Orcs - as they appear in JRRT - on racist/colonialist-type grounds is as a high school student in 1987 or early 1988 (I'm dating by my memory of the house I was living in at the time). I don't recall the name of the book, or its author. But it was from a public library, and so can't have been that esoteric.

I remember writing a letter to Marvel Comics in response to Conan 218 - May 1989 - remonstrating with them for the racism in that issue, and suggesting to them that they did not need to follow in REH's footsteps in that respect. (I don't believe my letter was published.)

Concerns about racism in fantasy are not a new thing.

Shootz the first time I read such a critique of Tolkien's Orcs was in an essay by checks notes J. R. R. Tolkien, who was diagurves by his own work there. If Tolkien was uncomfortable with his own sepiction of Orcs, why shouldn't others be?

 

[Hussar]

This is the part that I find so frustrating about these conversations.

The amount of revisionism that goes on makes the discussion like punching fog. "Oh, this is a new issue" - no it isn't. "No one is worried about this" - no, YOU aren't bothered by this, but, obviously SOMEONE is bothered, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. "Oh, if we change this word, why aren't we changing that word" - hello slippery slope argument my old friend. "Oh, what about this minor nitpick that is completely missing the entire argument?" Well, maybe if we actually stuck to the issue at hand, it might be a more productive discussion. "Oh, everyone is against me. Poor me. Help, I'm being oppressed!"

It's like the digression about Oriental Adventures. While the title is somewhat of an issue, that's most certainly NOT the actual issue with the book. The ACTUAL issue with the book is that the word "Oriental" is taken to mean "Japan" and Japanese culture and history is overlaid on top of every other Asian culture and history and presented as what it means to adventure in "The Orient".

Which, of course, is utter and complete bollocks. Imagine if WotC did an Occidental Adventures book where every class, every piece of equipment, and a large chunk of the monsters were translated into Arabic. After all, Persia is the source of real culture in Europe isn't it? It's the only culture that matters, no? Those other cultures in Europe? Meh, no one cares about those. We can just overwrite those. No one would possibly complain would they?

Yeah, I think there might be just a couple of ... I dunno... just a hair of disapproval from the fandom if they did this? Maybe? Just a tiny bit.

But overwrite all of China, Korea, Vietnam, and FFS INDIA in favor of a romanticized version of Japan? Oh, yeah, there's no problem at all with that. Totally understandable. Totally acceptable. Why one earth would anyone have any issue with that? After all, only Japan matters right?

 

[Bedrockgames]

That.... is painfully obvious. Like really, really obvious.

You completely misread what i mean there

The fact that you have been oblivious to these issues for decades does not mean that they did not exist.

This isn't what I meant.

You weren't aware of them and that's absolutely your right to no be. Fair enough. But the idea that these issues haven't been around for decades or more is simply revisionist history. As a self-proclaimed historian, don't you think you should be a smidgeon more informed about history if you are going to argue against something as endlessly as you have?

Please read my post again, this isn't what I said. My point about the past 50 years was I didn't see anything wrong with the changes made 15, 20, 30, or 40 years ago. But that in the past ten years something shifted in the hobby where we started obsessing over hidden meanings in language, esoteric meanings of tropes, etc. I.e. we started needlessly fretting over whether the dungeon delve was colonialist or if killing evil orcs was wrong. You are making it sound like I said the opposite of what I was saying

Also I have been very clear that I am not a historian. I have a BA in history and it is part of my education, but I am not a professional historian, nor do I have advanced degrees in history. I like history and will talk about it, and will talk about that. But I am not a historian.

I went to uni in the late 80's and all these issues were issues THEN. Remember the word "politically correct"? That isn't a new word. That's been around since at least the 80's. People have been making EXACTLY the same arguments that you are making, for a very, very long time.

It isn't a straight line. A lot of the changes being made in teh 80s were reasonable. Many of the changes today have been reasonable as well. But the the intense focus minutiae and the constant effort to find problems has reached a point where it is starting to feel absurd and counter productive. You can believe in social progress and change but also see where something that is well intentioned is going off the rails

 

[Bedrockgames]

The first time I remember reading a critique of Orcs - as they appear in JRRT - on racist/colonialist-type grounds is as a high school student in 1987 or early 1988 (I'm dating by my memory of the house I was living in at the time). I don't recall the name of the book, or its author. But it was from a public library, and so can't have been that esoteric.

I remember writing a letter to Marvel Comics in response to Conan 218 - May 1989 - remonstrating with them for the racism in that issue, and suggesting to them that they did not need to follow in REH's footsteps in that respect. (I don't believe my letter was published.)

Concerns about racism in fantasy are not a new thing.

In academia perhaps. This isn't how most people engage their media or entertainment. And it is one thing if people are just writing papers musing on a topic, another if they are coming in and saying orcs in D&D need to be changed because of it. I remember occasionally encountering those things when I was a history student and had to take something like a medias studies course. I found those arguments kind of odd then as they were not the norm in my department but you tended not to see them in life. Also I think talking about the in Tolkien is one thing. Talking about the history of the orc in Tolkien and the history of dungeons and dragons as going back to literature some people see as having colonialist inspiration or roots and treating that as some kind of original sin that the trope need to the purified of, is I think not very workable or reasonable for most people

 

[Parmandur]

This is the part that I find so frustrating about these conversations.

The amount of revisionism that goes on makes the discussion like punching fog. "Oh, this is a new issue" - no it isn't. "No one is worried about this" - no, YOU aren't bothered by this, but, obviously SOMEONE is bothered, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. "Oh, if we change this word, why aren't we changing that word" - hello slippery slope argument my old friend. "Oh, what about this minor nitpick that is completely missing the entire argument?" Well, maybe if we actually stuck to the issue at hand, it might be a more productive discussion. "Oh, everyone is against me. Poor me. Help, I'm being oppressed!"

It's like the digression about Oriental Adventures. While the title is somewhat of an issue, that's most certainly NOT the actual issue with the book. The ACTUAL issue with the book is that the word "Oriental" is taken to mean "Japan" and Japanese culture and history is overlaid on top of every other Asian culture and history and presented as what it means to adventure in "The Orient".

Which, of course, is utter and complete bollocks. Imagine if WotC did an Occidental Adventures book where every class, every piece of equipment, and a large chunk of the monsters were translated into Arabic. After all, Persia is the source of real culture in Europe isn't it? It's the only culture that matters, no? Those other cultures in Europe? Meh, no one cares about those. We can just overwrite those. No one would possibly complain would they?

Yeah, I think there might be just a couple of ... I dunno... just a hair of disapproval from the fandom if they did this? Maybe? Just a tiny bit.

But overwrite all of China, Korea, Vietnam, and FFS INDIA in favor of a romanticized version of Japan? Oh, yeah, there's no problem at all with that. Totally understandable. Totally acceptable. Why one earth would anyone have any issue with that? After all, only Japan matters right?

But, but, the four Japanese D&D players they showed the book to thought it was neat?!?!?! Surely, surely four random Japanese needs speak for all of Asia, right.!?!.!

 

[Bedrockgames]

Concerns about racism in fantasy are not a new thing.

I never said it was. I said I was not concerned about the kinds of changes and concerns being raised in decades ago in the 80s, or even just 15 years ago. What concerns me is the shift in focus to language, to searching for hidden meanings (a lot of criticism of RPGs now reminds me of LIster's Crypto-fascism* complaints in Red Dwarf), its use of lazy narratives around these issues, to the intensity of the self improvement efforts (sometimes this frankly feels like it has become a religion in the hobby). It just feels like when we've reached the point that the dungeon delve is being talked about as a colonialist trope, we've jumped the shark. Criticism has reached a level where it does actually make the game somewhat untenable because you have to second guess every creative act, and it is an open question whether you should be going around at all, killing things, and taking their stuff

*I know this isn't where the term was coined but it reminds me of his particular use, where he is calling everything crypto-fascist.

 

[Bedrockgames]

In your example of a consumer good, the opportunity to purchase it no longer exists.

What opportunity no longer exists in this case? The complainers already have libraries of books talking about liches' phylacteries, so they were hardly setting out to buy more of them. They haven't lost a consumption opportunity.

They still have the opportunity to talk and write about liches' phylacteries to their hearts' content.

So I don't agree that this is a clash of your two definitions. I think it's very hard to articulate an opportunity that has been lost.

Pemerton this is clearly just a semantic argument you are making. The fact is: Game X used to have Y, but current version of X no longer has it, so Y has been removed from the game is a perfectly reasonable useage of this language. That Y exists in earlier versions of the game in libraries or out in the world as a platonic idea, doesn't change the fact that it is not in the current edition. It isn't even an important point, but I am finding this particular argument you are making quite baffling