The really funny thing is the quote from the author of the 50th anniversary book doesn’t even work for WotC.
WotC is getting pooped on for not listening to gonads because an author who doesn’t work for the company made a blog post about how he didn’t foresee the traction to the foreword he wrote.
Let that sink in a bit.
That’s how far people will go to blame work for every little thing. An author who doesn’t work for them writes a history book and makes note that some of the stuff in his book is kinda offensive and this is WotC hating grognards.
This thread could use some levity at this point. Please go back and reread what you said here.
I don't want to assert that the orc changes are wrong. I think that's a high bar to clear and I'm not sure I agree. But I do want to assert that there are good faith reasons why someone might not like them. The traditional orc has a long history in literature. It ties back to demons (the origin of the word in Beowulf), to the swine things of the The House on the Borderland, to Tolkien, to classic mods.
When we say "this is necessary for inclusivity", it implies that the old depictions are flawed, that they are immoral, that someone who favors them is necessarily opposed to inclusivity. And I think those kind of statements can make people who like the older literary depictions feel they're being told their fun is bad, their interests are bad, and they must change.
Here's where I see a point of stasis I want to poke at, because I disagree. WotC has stated or implied that (at least some of)
their* depictions of orcs are flawed or immoral. And, again for some of their depictions, this is hard to argue against.
The Orcs of Thar and
Drums on Fire Mountain have straight-up yellow peril and bunga-bunga spearthrower vibes in them, straight-up correlating orcs with real world cultural groups (in a game that still treats them as the throwaway villains). Later, The
Complete Book of Humanoids gave them a revisionist western Native American overlay.
They screwed up orcs in a way that their subsequent depictions have to tread a very fine line. If (the proverbial)
you want to depict orcs in a different way (perhaps even mining from their previous less-problematic depictions), that is a different situation. I disagree that their doing something that is, for them (and based on their situation) "necessary for inclusivity" implies, suggests, or infers that your preference for any specific depiction of orc is opposed to inclusivity**.
*or TSR's, to which-- through their IP acquisition --they now have association.
**mind you, it still could be (if your preferred depiction is the Drums on Fire Mountain one, you might want to think on that), but it isn't an inherent inference of the burden WotC faces.
Then you get the (and I hate this term) the "Woke" factor. Species instead of race. Male mariliths, hag's, dryads, banshees...etc. Vistani are apparently racist despite being an archetype within a game setting (I never saw the old WoD Gypsies book as racist either for the same reason). Concepts that don't always sit right with those of us from an older generation. Society is changing for the better but does it need to impact D&D? In some places yes, and in others no. Despite what is in the Monster Manual, my games will continue to showcase things as we always have done but then my games are not public so it has no effect on others. But again, I can see where the more conservative players might feel these changes being forced unnecessarily out there.
So... I actually bought this one. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but, well, what I got wasn't it. There's not much to argue there. It treated real world, modern (at time of publication), Romani people as a fantasy species. It was not good. It is an embarrassment for everyone involved. I don't think it is the defense of your position that you think it is.
