D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[UngeheuerLich]

I know. Why did they finally settle on Wizard when "magic-user" had serviced us for years? D&D creators love sucking the flavor out of anything.

Yeah. They just named it wizard because they are called wizards of the coast...
... shame on them... oh wait...

 

[Voadam]

But reliquary? That’s a new one to me. If there’s an historical reference, consider me impressed.

googling "phylactery reliquary" I get hits like

This Cleveland Museum of Art piece Phylactery (Reliquary Pendant).

Mosan Masterpieces: Phylacteries of Hugo de Walcourt.

The Walters Art Museum which says in the description "This type of reliquary is called a phylactery (amulet) after the smaller versions of the same shape that believers wore around their necks for personal protection."

 

[Remathilis]

Just out of curiosity where did Bethesda make the change?

Elder Scrolls Online. Sometime between 2014 (original release) and 2020 (Greymoor expansion).

TECHNICALLY, Zenimax Studios runs ESO, but under Bethesda's eye. I really wish I remembered which specific quests used the word phylactery and which used the newer term, but I do recall going, "huh, that must mean phylactery" when they referred to it. I assume the earlier uses weren't changed due to the difficulty of getting the VAs back to re record the lines.

 

[Chaltab]

I always forget about TES Online.

 

[Remathilis]

I always forget about TES Online.

So does every other Elder Scrolls fan.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The Woke is strong with WotC, and it shows, such as removing race/species ability score modifiers and moving that to backgrounds.

Mod Note:

“Woke” as a pejorative?

They seem squeamish about some things that gamers themselves aren't bothered by.

AND assuming your POV is the majority/ubiquitous for the whole market?

The latter is merely an egotistical, logical fallacy. The former is a violation of ENWorld’s policies.

You’re done in this thread.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm sure you can find massive debate threads about the use of "Oriental" in RPGs too.

This is a different case though because Oriental is used as a slur for Asian people in the US. When Oriental Adventures came out it was much more common in regular usage. But now don't think they would use that title if they were to put out a new version (I like both OA books but I could completely understand them changing that part of the name in a new edition). Also this is a case where it seems to me that it isn't just a small portion of Asian people who take issue with the word. None of us would use it to describe an Asian person in real life because we know it can be a slur

Lots of "I'm in that minority group, and I don't find it offensive, and so I'm offended that people NOT from that minority group find it offensive, they're the REAL racists".

I am not saying people on the other side of this debate are the real racists. But I do think the proportions of people who find it offensive matter here. If the majority of a group like something or don't see an issue, you are potentially having a negative impact on literature, art, games, etc for a small number of people who take issue. Again I would point to the mafia media example I gave. There were always some number of Italian Americans who objected to those depictions, but most found it cool. I think we would be culturally impoverished a bit if we didn't have films like The Godfather or Goodfellas, or shows like the Sopranos (and you would hear people complain about stuff like Sopranos even in the early 2000s----it was rare, they were not he majority, but those complaints existed).

However, mostly the frustrations seem to boil down to "it's tradition, why change it for modern (aka "woke") sensibilities?". You can't argue with people who feel that way. Especially now, with the current political climate of the world.

I think it is more about people wanting to prioritize creativity, art, flavor, etc instead of taking this extremely fine toothed comb to everything. It may be well intentioned, but it just seems to be making a lot of content worse. I am not saying we should be doing the opposite either (intentionally trying to offend or provoke for example). I just think people are kind of tired with this sort of content fretting over little details most people never really even thought about before. Again, some people just want to bust in a door and kill some orcs to blow off some steam. That is now something that gets heavy scrutiny, even though no serious person thinks it has a real world impact


Also I wouldn't make assumptions about peoples politics. Obviously we can't really talk politics at all here, but it is frustrating when you say something like "I think it is okay to have evil orcs" or "I think people are too obsessed with finding problematic content" and they use that to paint you as having a particular political conviction. I am not right wing for example. You don't have to be to find this mindset a bit stifling or even censorious.

It's a dead-end, futile debate and will only result in bitterness and frustration at best, malicious doxxing at worst.

Look, we should all be treating one another with respect and not doing things like doxxing. If anything like that is happening, whichever side of the debate it is coming from, the mods should step in. For the record I don't have any resentment towards people I disagree with these issues about. I believe they are sincere and have just reached different conclusions than I have. We can be charitable to one another and try to understand that a lot of these disagreements get heated because people are passionate about games but also because we are talking about real world moral issues that people care about

 

[jayoungr]

This is a different case though because Oriental is used as a slur for Asian people in the US.

AFAIK, the term fell out of favor because of the influence of Edward Said's book Orientalism, which presented it as a representing a harmful viewpoint. But from what I saw (and I live in a town with a very large East Asian population), it went from common usage to just being replaced, without really going through the "slur" phase.

 

[Bedrockgames]

AFAIK, the term fell out of favor because of the influence of Edward Said's book Orientalism, which framed it as a representing a harmful viewpoint. But from what I saw (and I live in a town with a very large East Asian population), it went from common usage to just being replaced, without really going through the "slur" phase.

Said’s orientalism is a topic unto itself. My point is just most people in the US wouldn’t use that word anymore. And it isn’t a word I would be comfortable using. But I am not saying OA should be taken down or have a content warning

 

[Chaltab]

In the hypothetical where WOTC did anything with the property there's no way they'd call it Oriental Adventures. Likely something like "Ishi Barasume's Guide to Kara-Tur" or something.