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

[Maxperson]

Here is what I take @Remathilis's claim to be:

In AD&D (Gygax's PHB - I don't know how different 2nd ed is), both Gnomes and Half-Orcs have a minimum strength of 6.

In AD&D, a male Half-Orc has 4 times the chance of having percentile strength as a male Gnome (roll of 18 vs roll of 17 or 18, because of the +1). There is then a 50% chance of having a greater percentile roll.

So out of 206 male Gnomes (ie rolls of 6+ on 3d6) compared to 212 male Half-Orcs (rolls of 5+ on 3d6, as the +1 brings them to the minimum), 2 of the Half-Orcs are stronger than the strongest Gnome (ie of the 4 who rolled a 17 or 18, the two who also rolled 51+ on the percentile dice).

That does not suggest some wild difference in strength across the two populations as a whole.

It's not a wild difference across most of the populations. At the upper end it is wild, though. However, the average half-orc will be stronger than the average halfling, making it a stronger race overall.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't play video games and I don't like superhero movies or comics so those just aren't media I can say much intelligent on. I mean I've seen superman movies in the past (the old ones). But I don't have any real opinions on what superman ought to be or Louis Lane

So, because you do not play video games, you cannot comment on the fact that there are many male "gamers" who rage and protest at games for featuring "ugly" women instead of unrealistic pin-up models boobily breasting across the screen? What part of actually playing a video game do you think would give you additional, needed insight?

I don't think this needs evidence. It is pretty apparent to me talking to people in the hobby, as a designer myself it is pretty apparent too, and you can see it in works, just like you could see it in movies form the Hays code. But from where I am standing it is very clear this stuff is impacting peoples creativity and causing a lot of folks to second guess and self censor. If you don't think that is happening. Fair. But I can pretty much guarantee out in the world, it is kind of laughable to suggest that isn't going on. To me the Van Richten book looked like a product of this kind of thinking about media and game design for instance.

Interesting. You know I am pretty deep in the community, follow various creatives who design products and make content for the game. Yet I've never seen any of the "apparent" effect.

I wonder what the difference might be between the people I interact and follow and the people you talk to? I mean, the only major changes on this level to Van Richten's guide were removing racist stereotypes, like a black rapist who turns into a beast. Is that the sort of thinking and game design you are hearing people complaining about stifling their ability to make the art they want?

You don't have to. Also I don't think I have been proven wrong by anything. From my vantage point there has been a steep decline in the quality of material available over the past ten years. And we've seen how the orc debate moved from 'you can like problematic things' and 'of course we aren't taking away evil orcs' to where it is now. So I don't think teh concerns I have raised about it are all that crazy. But if this stuff doesn't bother you, if you feel the books are better and people are more free to be creative than before, fair enough. That is your view. I am just giving you my view (and I do think the validity of my view is apparent. I tis pretty clear to me there is a change in how people are viewing these things and that people are starting to really grow tired of the trend. I could be wrong, but I expect, as I said in the other post, in tend years people will look back on this time and see it as an overcorrection that resulted in some odd aesthetics and designs choices

Of course you haven't been proven wrong in this thread. We haven't been trying to prove you wrong, because none of us think your position has any merit whatsoever. For example, looking at your take here "how the orc debate moved from 'you can like problematic things' and 'of course we aren't taking away evil orcs' to where it is now." The debate moved? No it didn't. You can still like problematic things, people have told you that in this very thread dated to this very day. Have evil orcs been taken away? Absolutely not. Evil orcs still exist. Where are we now? With them being treated the same as every other humanoid, which doesn't change how they were being talked about being treated at the start of the debate.

So why are you trying to prevent this as a series of goalposts being left behind, when all the statements are still just as true as they were back then?

And yeah, you keep saying that in "ten years" we will see. Just like how four years ago you were saying "in ten years people will look back on this and see it as a time of overcorrection". You know, just like the Hayes Code, The Satanic Panic, The Comics Code Authority, Censorship! Be scared, remember these things that happened before and believe that this is exactly like that! I mean, during the Satanic Panic people went to jail! They were accused of murder! That is exactly the same thing as being mildly told that a company distributing globally is going to be more considerate in their representation due to appealing to a large audience and that people don't like buying products that stink of racism and sexism!

Or, you know, this is completely different and you are just trying to scare monger to drive people to reject a change out of fear.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Yes, AI makes it easier for people to make art.

They are not making diddly. They are at best acquiring.

 

[Faolyn]

The biggest problem is that we've convinced ourselves, as a collective humanity, that art isn't worth making if it's not good.

Very much this. There's no definition of what good art is--just look at all the types of art there are in the world. Even within the gaming community, there's different art styles. And one person's metric for what counts as good is quite different from another person's. When I published my book for Level Up, I saw one person comment on the black and white art that I drew for it, mentioning that it was very OSR-ish. Typical OSR art is very, very different than the type of digitally painted art that 5e typically uses now, and there's "good" and "bad" artists in both camp--or for my own preference in terms, proficient and non-proficient artists. 5e's art isn't "more good" just because it's usually full-color and has complete backgrounds. And OSR-ish b&w art isn't "more good" because it's starker and typically more illustrative.

 

[Bedrockgames]

As for the second quoted sentence, the question immediately arises - how representative are they? Given that WotC chose to publish The Radiant Citadel, presumably on the basis (among other considerations) of market research, my inference is that those people are not very representative.

I am not really continuing with some of these back and forth as we've all kind of said out peace, but I do want to point out, I had mentioned I also bought this book because I wanted the Pak Mei adventure in it. I bought the Van Richten book too despite misgivings about a lot of the content ( I still wanted it).

 

[pemerton]

An addendum to my post above: for my 206 males Gnomes, the median STR will be 11. (And most have 9 to 12.)

For my 212 male Half-Orcs, the median STR will be 12. (And most have 10 to 13.)

The difference between STR of 10 and STR of 13 is +10 lb weight allowance, and an increase in the BB/LG chance from 2% to 4%. the only way that STR 9 is any different is a BB/LG chance of 1%.

Leaving aside what, exactly, that change in BB/LG that is independent of other meaningful changes corresponds to in the fiction, this is not some wild difference in the median and typical male member of each race.

 

[pemerton]

It's not a wild difference across most of the populations. At the upper end it is wild, though. However, the average half-orc will be stronger than the average halfling, making it a stronger race overall.

See my post just above. The difference is utterly negligible.

 

[Maxperson]

An addendum to my post above: for my 206 males Gnomes, the median STR will be 11. (And most have 9 to 12.)

For my 212 male Half-Orcs, the median STR will be 12. (And most have 10 to 13.)

The difference between STR of 10 and STR of 13 is +10 lb weight allowance, and an increase in the BB/LG chance from 2% to 4%. the only way that STR 9 is any different is a BB/LG chance of 1%.

Leaving aside what, exactly, that change in BB/LG that is independent of other meaningful changes corresponds to in the fiction, this is not some wild difference in the median and typical male member of each race.

Why are you repeating wild difference? Stronger is stronger. They are not the same when it comes to strength. The difference is only wild at the upper end, which is where PCs tend to end up when playing fighters.

 

[Parmandur]

See my post just above. The difference is utterly negligible.

Another factor in OG AD&D that made or negligible was 3d6 rolled in order, at least in theory. 3E made the significance of the modifiers larger, and leaned unto encouraging metagming "builds," so weak Half-Orcs and strong Gnomes are less likely in 3E than AD&D by the book.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I am no huge AI fan, but I think telling disabled people they shouldn't have access to tools like this because they can just put a brush in their mouth if they really want it is kind of crummy ma. I mean yes, many people with disabilities will overcome them or surmount the challenges to do things like make great art, but some people need tools to compensate for their disability. This is definitely an area I wouldn't mind seeing AI used in

I think telling disabled people that they need a computer to generate art for them, based on a written prompt, is crummy. And bringing up disabled people, who to my knowledge have never made this claim, as a human shield to deflect criticism of people too lazy to put in the effort to make art is even worse.