It's the last gasp of the bigots. As with other bigotries, such as miscegenation, gay marriage, etc (in which they used similar arguments), they know they're on the way out and are trying to shout down the inevitable. They're on the losing side of history, and they know it, and they're flailing...
That's what I don;t get about the whole "but we can't tell proper stories!" crowd who don't want change. At the moment, orcs are one dimensional evil beings, used to be something to fight. That's it. Change them and you have a whole load of new stories you can do with orcs. They're wanting to...
And just like the detractors of global warming, the people arguing against the experts and actual people telling you about their lived experience, are wrong. Just because there are two sides, doesn't mean those two sides are equally legitimate.
You're being very unfair to conservatives here, lumping them in with the extreme right bigots, misogynists, racists, homo- and trans-phobes. Treating people as people is not "left wing politics," it's simple human decency. To claim that these ugly positions are "conservative" is a gross attack...
To continue the punk (and assorted alternative scenes), I think of it like the "apolitical" punks and skinheads who are happy to go along to see fascist and neo-nazi bands, pay them money, buy their shirts etc, because they're "apoitical" and not doing it to support the neo-nazis, just to enjoy...
Perhaps posts that don't treat other posters with respect with regards to origin, gender, sexual orientation, whether individually or as a group, and other such bigotry and safekeeping, should be labelled politics, deleted, and their posters warned?
I'm going for the opposite view myself - I didn't think there was much chance of a planescape book this year, but I'm changing my mind. Vistani as plane-hoppers would fit, and the different race options could be a sign that in different planes, different races have different abilities.
I'm a big fan of OSR (have been since, well, since it wasn't the old school, it was just the school, back in the early 80s). If it's a choice between "tradition" and inclusion, then inclusion 100%, of course.
It's a great version (though I'm torn, since I realy like TOR too), and probably my favourite version over 5e normal. I'd pick up what you can now. Fria Ligan have the rights to TOR, and they've said they're going to put out 2nd ed of those rules sometime soon-ish (though that could still be a...
I was a player rather than a GM, but a Bushido campaign way back in the day that I was involved with had a total of about 30 players all together. I don't think we quite got everyone at the table at the same time, but for some of the bigger events (big battles, etc) we had over 20 at a time.
I do a lot of OSR stuff; there are plenty of us out there who aren't in any way racist (as I hope my contributions to these threads have shown). Please don't label all of us OSR peeps as racist.