D&D General Drow in early D&D

[Urriak Uruk]

Are you suggesting that citing Lovecraft's prejudice as being comparable to the Tulsa massacre is an appropriate comparison to make? Because it takes an incredible amount of privilege to defend that idea.

Obviously not, don't try to hook me into such nonsense.

But @Whizbang Dustyboots is rightly calling out some of Lovecraft's bad opinions (even for the time), and you've decided to shift the tone by saying "I'm not defending racism, but you're actually participating in supremacy!"

Maybe you should both drop it, as this thread is becoming embarrassing to read.

 

[Alzrius]

Obviously not, don't try to hook me into such nonsense.

Right back at you. I said the idea that the two were comparable was a form of white supremacy, not that any particular individual was a white supremacist.

is rightly calling out some of Lovecraft's bad opinions (even for the time), and you've decided to shift the tone by saying "I'm not defending racism, but you're actually participating in supremacy!"

Minimizing what happened by suggesting that Lovecraft should be mentioned alongside the Tulsa massacre is a supremacist notion. It suggests that Lovecraft was as bad as things got for African-Americans, and that's not acceptable.

Maybe you should both drop it, as this thread is becoming embarrassing to read.

You should take your own advice and take some time off from this thread in order to examine just what it is you're defending.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Right back at you. I said the idea that the two were comparable was a form of white supremacy, not that any particular individual was a white supremacist.

Minimizing what happened by suggesting that Lovecraft should be mentioned alongside the Tulsa massacre is a supremacist notion. It suggests that Lovecraft was as bad as things got for African-Americans, and that's not acceptable.

You should take your own advice and take some time off from this thread in order to examine just what it is you're defending.

You accused him of a form of white supremacy. Tomato tamatoe.

He used Tulsa as an example, he didn't say they were the same. You're adding subtext that doesn't exist! This is some weird attempt to deflect from criticizing Lovecraft. Two things can be bad at different degrees, I'm sorry if that's too complicated for debate.

 

[Alzrius]

You accused him of a form of white supremacy. Tomato tamatoe.

No, I pointed out that the comparison itself is a form of white supremacy. I deliberately stayed away from hurling that accusation at him, or you for that matter. That's an important distinction.

I don't think he's a white supremacist, nor that you're one. But the diminishment, unintentional though it may be, is, and it should be called as such wherever it's encountered.

He used Tulsa as an example, he didn't say they were the same. You're adding subtext that doesn't exist! This is some weird attempt to deflect from criticizing Lovecraft. Two things can be bad at different degrees, I'm sorry if that's too complicated for debate.

It's not a deflection, because no one is saying that Lovecraft shouldn't be criticized. He should be; his views were wrong and unacceptable. But neither should be held up as a "super-racist," with its suggestion that he was somehow worse than the "non-super" racists, and likewise ignoring how there were far worse acts of racism being perpetrated. To then bring up Tulsa in the context of arguing against that point is making the comparison, whether intentional or not.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It's not a deflection, because no one is saying that Lovecraft shouldn't be criticized. He should be; his views were wrong and unacceptable. But neither should be held up as a "super-racist," with its suggestion that he was somehow worse than the "non-super" racists, and likewise ignoring how there were far worse acts of racism being perpetrated. To then bring up Tulsa in the context of arguing against that point is making the comparison, whether intentional or not.

I'm not even going to make an argument here, this whole paragraph is such plain nonsensical conjecture. I'm going to do myself a favor and just block you.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm not even going to make an argument here, this whole paragraph is such plain nonsensical conjecture. I'm going to do myself a favor and just block you.

You're saying more about your views than I think even you realize, here, and not in a good way.

 

[Voadam]

True--because they used to be human(oid) and therefore have that as a base. The other examples are too alien.

I would not say mind flayers are too alien to be reconceived as good guys.

 

[Azzy]

This has gotten silly.

 

[Faolyn]

I would not say mind flayers are too alien to be reconceived as good guys.

View attachment 138141

As fun as the Ood were, they aren't mind flayers.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I would not say mind flayers are too alien to be reconceived as good guys.

View attachment 138141

mindflayer eat people and highjack your body and enslave people they are just terrible horrible and are okay to unalive.
tentacle faced beings are not inherently evil but mindflayers suck.

 

[Voadam]

Right they are just squid-faced telepathic aliens who can turn you into one of them:

who can use psychic energy to blast minds,

and who have giant elder brains central to their society.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Right they are just squid-faced telepathic aliens who can turn you into one of them:

View attachment 138147

who can use psychic energy to blast minds,

View attachment 138150


and who have giant elder brains central to their society.

View attachment 138148

it was one time and he was mass enslaving them.

 

[pming]

Right they are just squid-faced telepathic aliens who can turn you into one of them:

View attachment 138147

who can use psychic energy to blast minds,

View attachment 138150


and who have giant elder brains central to their society.

View attachment 138148

Er...uh...well... since you put it like that...



^_^

Paul L. ming

 

[DrunkonDuty]

The Ood certainly have a mindlayer look and mindflayer powers. But they don't have mindflayer culture.

Wait on... is that the point someone was making above? I think I've lost the thread.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The Ood certainly have a mindlayer look and mindflayer powers. But they don't have mindflayer culture.

Wait on... is that the point someone was making above? I think I've lost the thread.

The Ood are certainly a deliberate subversion of mind flayers, but being subversive is what Doctor Who does. I'm not sure how the discussion got here, but Chris Perkins does something similar with the gnome-flayers in Rime of the Frostmaiden (although you could run it as a straight combat encounter).

Was the point that you can't make something both completely alien and morally nuanced? In which case I would say that it isn't true.

 

[Faolyn]

Was the point that you can't make something both completely alien and morally nuanced? In which case I would say that it isn't true.

The point (if you are serious about not remembering the origin of this sub-thread) is that someone declared that if you make drow not Always Evil, then you might as well say that mind flayers are all just misunderstood and really all just good inside.

I pointed out that there was a big difference between a humanoid who has been raised in a terrible religion and an predatory, parasitical alien entity.

 

[Blue Orange]

I think the point is that the mind flayers literally can't live without killing other intelligent beings--they need to consume the brain of a being with Intelligence 7 or greater if I remember right or they starve to death.

You could theoretically raise drow with non-evil values and they wouldn't be evil. (I mean, I guess some of them would, but no more than other humans.)

 

[Weiley31]

In regards to hair color, in Romanian vampire myths, the Strigori(Vampires) usually had red hair. Or that deceased red heads were more likely seen as coming back from the dead as vampires.

 

[Yaarel]

This image is from Vaesen, the Horror Roleplay Game, by Free League. It is awesome, exploring the darker side of the Scandinavian folk belief.

In it is a picture of a family, with the hair-color temperaments. Blond mellow rational, black somber protective, red fiery, gray dissociated. The expressions are so spot on, surely the artist is portraying these temperaments intentionally. But who knows, perhaps the artist is expressing these worldview concepts unconsciously.

 

[Mind of tempest]

This image is from Vaesen, the Horror Roleplay Game, by Free League. It is awesome, exploring the darker side of the Scandinavian folk belief.

In it is a picture of a family, with the hair-color temperaments. Blond mellow rational, black somber protective, red fiery, gray dissociated. The expressions are so spot on, surely the artist is portraying these temperaments intentionally. But who knows, perhaps the artist is expressing these worldview concepts unconsciously.

View attachment 138181

does brown mean the same as black?