teitan
Legend
Yeah when it came it it was heaped with praise for its inclusiveness in its artwork, the use of pronouns and diversity of characters in the modules representing different minorities and cultures. Then about two years ago it changed...
D&D 5E 50th Anniversary and beyond
and it will change again...
where is the grandpa Simpson reference...
Everything change, progressive's for 1974 are archaic conservative today. Words my grandmother (in her 90s and still going) are things if I said would bring a lot of weird looks and might even offend at my table, but she would say she was very progressive. My mother doesn't understand many 'life style' changes in my friends group, let alone said grandmother... my nieces and nephews (no kids yet) think I am out of touch, and I would describe myself as VERY progressive.
10 years ago inclusive is seen as backwards today. 20 years ago inclusive might be considered BIGOTED today. 10 years from now it will be different again.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Fair enough (that is my favorite Grandpa quote, and I feel his pain). But you have to admit 5 years after publishing is a pretty quick shift from a social perspective, particularly with how vehement some people are about it.
oh yes... and for the record I know that quote because I feel it. Every. Damn. Day.
remember if you were Bart or Lisa's age when the Simpsons started, you are OLDER than Homer or Marge now...
To quote a 35-year-old movie: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Consider what else has been happening out there in the world for the past 5 years, and maybe it'll be less surprising.
yeah, everything is moving fast today (or maybe I am slowing in my old age).
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
To be fair, I didn't say it was surprising, I said it was fast.
teitan
Legend
YEah but like it was pointed out, it wasn't ten years ago, it was 8, and it is still, compared to a lot of things that are considered inclusive, very inclusive. It isn't that the idea changed, it's that the way and the why things are targeted has changed in quite unhealthy ways. We can continue to support a murderer but when he says something bigoted he gets canceled... why wasn't he canceled for murdering people in the first place? That should be the bigger issue in the case of Da Baby as just an example. His bigotry is secondary to taking a human life in public and getting off the charges. While many facets of the RPG industry have been justly targeted for awful behavior, like Zak S. and others, the targeting of WOTC, and D&D, who has been inclusive and had been praised for it and continues to push the boundaries of inclusiveness, has turned into "not good enough" very rapidly and quickly, as if they were pushing out alt-right propaganda. But here we veer into politics.
The facts remains that D&D has been inclusive since the launch of 5e and stretched those boundaries and deserves praise for continuing to push those boundaries and opening the doors for players of all types.
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Geoff Thirlwell
Adventurer
I’m probably tread on thin ice but I think that if inclusivity becomes too much of a focus it can seem forced or disproportionate and instead of promoting inclusivity it can actually provoke a negative reaction. The game should be something everyone feels comfortable playing without feeling excluded but I think something is going very wrong when the rules are being distorted unnecessarily in an attempt to ensure that even the most creative person cannot read some sort of offence into the text.
Just to be completely clear, I believe that inclusivity is a good thing but it is a delicate balance and can be mismanaged. I enjoy the Dragon Talk podcast but it went for a very long period (possibly 20 episode) where every single guest was either black and talked about their colour or was non-heterosexual and talked about that. I have absolutely no issues with people from either of these groups and enjoyed their interviews as much as any other guest but it was an extremely disproportionate representation of the majority of the fan base. The guests race or sexuality seemed to be the main reason they were chosen for the show. They have a random character generator segment where probably only a quarter of the characters gender is male or female. The host for some reason decided to refer to Raistlin from Dragonlance as “they” on several occasion when the character is clearly defined as male. It all just seemed so false and I couldn’t help but think “oh no, not this again”. To me, this forced inclusivity is off putting and I don’t want to feel that way about something that should be a positive thing.
Just to be completely clear, I believe that inclusivity is a good thing but it is a delicate balance and can be mismanaged. I enjoy the Dragon Talk podcast but it went for a very long period (possibly 20 episode) where every single guest was either black and talked about their colour or was non-heterosexual and talked about that. I have absolutely no issues with people from either of these groups and enjoyed their interviews as much as any other guest but it was an extremely disproportionate representation of the majority of the fan base. The guests race or sexuality seemed to be the main reason they were chosen for the show. They have a random character generator segment where probably only a quarter of the characters gender is male or female. The host for some reason decided to refer to Raistlin from Dragonlance as “they” on several occasion when the character is clearly defined as male. It all just seemed so false and I couldn’t help but think “oh no, not this again”. To me, this forced inclusivity is off putting and I don’t want to feel that way about something that should be a positive thing.
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