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I remember once being sent an email by some genealogical group who wanted me to pay them for family tree services. They said they had good evidence I was descended from a particular roman emperor (I can't remember which one). I wrote back bemused, saying given the sheer length of time, and the...

That link from Professor Kennedy is obvious good sense but I don't see what it has to do with the current discussion.

No the whole trope that's in play here is an ancient one. You have virile male societies that build empires and then you have civilisations that enter states of decadence. In such societies, so the trope goes, men become effeminate, and women become influential and sexually poweful and the men...

In ancient Rome, being African and being black were not the same thing. The majority of Africans were mediterranean. See this interaction between Septimus Severus (African and often said to be Black, but probably not for reasons which should become clear, with an Ethiopian soldier on Hadrian's...

There's a gulf of light years between being against racist tropes being implemented in the depiction of fictional races and the the idea that PC characters should never act in immoral ways or do evil things. Even the idea that these are in some way equivalent displays either serious conceptual...

The Drow play into the (obviously) rather sexist idea that a society where women have a strong influence will become decadent. This has a loooong history.

There's evil races, and then there's evil races with the curse of ham. I personally don't really have a problem with evil monster species in the abstract (aside from the whole idea being boring), I think the main issue is when certain things get attached to them.

Isn't that what the Aim rule in Tasha's is about? Just saying, "stuff it" have advantage, because you need it. Honestly, this kind of thing is where I wish D&D just had designer's side bars like in 13th Age, that said things like "This is what we were thinking". It seems obvious that the...

But Mr Crawford, I need you opinion, in official D&D is water considered wet?

Me in the 90s reading Homeland at 13. Someone else asking me what I'm reading. Me, finding myself in the position of explaining what a Dark elf is and realising how dodgy the whole concept it. The thing that puzzles me about a lot of the recent social justice movements around D&D, is that...

One of the elements in Sword and Sorcery, especially via Conan, is the idea of cyclic and frequently catastrophic history. In the Conan stories this is filled with all kinds of assumptions from 19th century race "science" but it doesn't really need to be. However, any progress in Conan's world...

They're all fine ideas, but I don't see why they would be in a PHB. They're DM ideas, surely they belong in the DMG as possiblities? Or in a setting book.

My observation of halfling PCs is that people tend to play them in a way which is tonally distinct from humans. I'm not sure how relevant lore is to all this (and really I think lore is a fandom fixation, not a practical game issue anyway). My observation has been in actual play halflings are...

Perhaps. But that is subjective. I find that art looks cooler if it also looks functional. I just find it hard to be excited by fantasy characters that are wearing armour and wielding weapons that look like some combination of painted cosplay cardboard and polystyrene. But I don't actually...

Yes. Those are the rather ridiculous ones that were posted before yes. And the D&D one's are equally ridiculous. None of them look like something you would see in history. The dwarf with the helmet wings wouldn't be so bad without the helmet wings, but he does have helmet wings (and a...

I don't understand why you are posting new pictures when I am commenting on previous ones. Those NEW pictures largely look like armour (except for the helmet with the horns on it). I did say I wasn't commenting on Warhammer Dwarves in general. It's almost as if you're commenting on a post...

I always dump them. I figure Dwarves are always capable of being evil on their own.

Well that's not as bad as the others. I wasn't commenting on Warhammer Dwarves in general just the oddness of the idea that the a Dwarf with huge decorative wings on there helmet was somehow "not ridiculous". Although so far no one has posted any pictures of dwarves wearing armour that...

I find furry races tedious unless they are deeply integrated into symbolism and setting lore. I feel they're almost always easy but lazy design. Pick some animal that people know and let that do 90% of the work for you. There's a reason they were a mainstay of fantasy heartbreakers.

Can't be very new guard if they're being compared to Kender, a race from a campaign setting that has been out of print for a generation.