D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Guest 85555]

See, when I realize a product is made by people who are different than me, my first thought is, huh, OK. What I don't think that it was a diversity hire made to fill out a quota or entice the "woke" crowd, and I don't automatically wonder if they're qualified or not to do their jobs well. What I do assume is that, if it's a big company like WotC, or a smaller gaming company that produces good work in general, that whoever this person is, they must have done work good enough to get them this job.

I don't assume that either. But if a company makes it into an extravaganza to promote it, and that seems to be the entire point, not only will the audience doubt it, the people hired may wonder if they are being used. Tokenism is a thing. And companies use platitudes all the time to promote themselves in marketing. It is a valid concern. It doesn't mean they have to hide who wrote the book.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No it is not. Restrictions on speech, like the comic code, or Hays Code, stifle creativity, it been seen time and time again.

Have you ever heard of a comic called Judgement Day! by E.C. comics? It was printed in "Weird Fantasy #18" in violation of the comic code. Do you want to know how it violated the Comics Code? The guy in charge of code wouldn't approve the comic, about how racism was bad in a robot society divided between blue and orange robots... because the human astronaut at the end was revealed to be a black man.

The Hays code specifically banned homosexual individuals as part of "sex perversion" alongisde showing people of two different races have "relations".

Neither of these codes were about inclusion. They were about puritanism and upholding "traditional values"

Really so did the fact all the Empire were white human men, in uniforms that shared a lot in common with the Nazi army just float over your head? That's the main reason people didn't like Finn as a black stormtrooper, because the Empire was basically a fascist organisation, that inclusivity diluted it. Also Chewbacca while it wasn't obvious in the movie, in the wider lore around, Wookies were made a slave race by the Empire, so year lots of racism in Star Wars.

Yes, the fact that the empire were all white human men in uniforms did float over my head, because at the time I almost never saw a live action movie or show that wasn't nearly exclusively filled with white human men. Kind of difficult for that to be notable when it was just the same thing I always saw. Also, just out of curiosity, what race is a "Nazi"? Are you saying that they had a lot in common with the Germanic people? Or maybe the French people? Or are you saying that they had a lot in common with a political movement and not a race of people? Additionally, why can't facists that control multiple planets filled with aliens not have a palette swapped human? If they were human supremists... black people are still human, so they'd be perfectly fine saying a black man is also supremely better than something like a Wookie or a Hut.

And, did you read my post? Specifcally the part where I said "the original Star Wars trilogy"? Because if you did, then why are you trying to counter my point by saying that something didn't exist in the original movies, you know the original trilogy, but it WAS in later stuff? Because later books and movies AREN'T the original trilogy. So they sort of don't apply to the point I was making.

 

[Guest 85555]

While I'm not going to say that everyone needs a college education, I am going to say that what you're saying is horribly bigoted: "if you want to get minorities to buy these books, get uneducated people to write them." I mean, seriously?" While also saying that minority employees may cause readers to doubt they were hired for any reason other than marketability?

That isn't what I am saying. And maybe it seems that way to you because you consider not going to college uneducated or bad. I am saying they are targeting a very narrow section of the country that has college degrees (largely masters degrees) and that seems to be the only band of diversity they are interested in. You are going to get a lot more diversity if look at working class neighborhoods. If you live in a working class urban environment you know there are lots of people from all over the world living in those places.

And no I am not saying hiring minority employees causes people to doubt. I am saying when companies capitalize on that for marketing it can plant a seed of doubt in peoples mind (including the people hired).

 

[Chaosmancer]

I want to be clear here, this is not my argument at all. I never said anything about being inclusive makes art bad, or that if art doesn't include racism, it is bad. That isn't my argument at all. Make games and art inclusive if you want to. There is nothing wrong with that. What I am talking about is an increasingly restrictive moral framework built around notions of diversity that I think is leading to less entertaining content (and I would point to the Dark Sun thread as a case in point).

The increasingly moral framework of not glorifying racism/sexism/violence and lies about minorities?

Let's take that Dark Sun thing. WoTC has stated they don't want to remake Dark Sun because pretty much the entire setting is based around slavery. Everything functions because of slavery. But, WoTC has also released Theros, a world steeped in Greek Myths with major drivers of the plot being the fickle gods and their relationships with the mortals. Are we less entertained by Theros?

Let us say that they end up releasing a D20 modern setting, taking the generic fantasy ideas and placing them in a modern setting. Would that not be entertaining content? I certainly would love to see what sort of world could be made with a serious take on that sort of concept.

We aren't actually getting "less entertaining" content, we are getting DIFFERENT content. And if you really, really, really need a desert world full of horrible people and based on slave economies... then make one. No one will bat an eye at you. But WoTC isn't required to make it, and they decided that it wasn't really something they wanted to make.

 

[Guest 85555]

So above, you were saying that diversity hires should be kept quiet because people might not think they're qualified to writers and were just hired to be marketable. Here you're saying that people who may qualified to be editors but may have no other experience should become game designers.

That isn't what I was saying above. Again I never said people should be kept quiet. I said their identities should be exploited for marketing purposes that serve to paint the company in a positive moral light.

Uh-huh.

So which is it? Should non-white people be creators or not? Is it OK if non-white people are creators as long as nobody knows they're creators? Should we also go back to the days when women who wrote SF used initials so nobody would realize they had a feminine first name?

I don't think I could be more clear: they should be creators. You are reading all kinds of things into my statement that have nothing to do with what I said or with the intentions of my words.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't know this comic strip at all so I can't really weigh in on it. But I am not saying that everything being made is boring. And I am not against settings that are utopian in certain ways (Star Trek was a highly progressive show built on a utopian vision of the future). That can totally work. It is more about having a rigid list of things that aren't allowed or can only be approached in extremely esoteric ways, because there is this broadening of what is taboo in art. But the comic strip you point to may well be great. I am not saying those things don't exist or can't. I am saying designers and artists are being constrained and I think most are feeling it at this point. But the world is still populated with talented artists. You are going to have people making great art despite restrictions and you are going to have people making great art that fully embraces the restrictions. I just think when you look back on eras when there was a moral narrowing of what was permissible in media, it shows and it often produces, at least for me, much less interesting content.

But again I want to be clear because people keep painting my position as being against diversity. I am not. I like diversity. I want more people to play RPGs from all kinds of backgrounds. I just think the current efforts to promote it are based on flawed assumptions, often backfire and shield people from content they might otherwise enjoy (all one needs to do is look at episodes of TV shows that disappear on streaming platforms or portions that are edited out to see the effect this has on free expression and our ability to access and view the content we want). People don't have to agree with me. It is certainly possible I am completely wrong. But I don't think it is fair to paint my position in this way when that is clearly not what I am saying.



Again my argument isn't, and never has been, worlds are interesting if they have more racism. My argument has been for not limiting designers, artists and writers from handling subjects like that and for people to maybe chill a little and interpret things with a more charitable lens. People in this thread have stated very clearly that WOTC can't include certain things, not even because they are bad, but because they could be perceived as bad or taken the wrong way. This is where I think we are going over the edge.

In the case of Half Elves, I think what I and many others are arguing is that the trope of the outsider who is between two worlds and contends with a range of reactions that can include bigotry, resonates and is interesting to many people (especially to people who have felt that way). But that isn't an argument stating that bigotry has to to exist in all settings for settings to be interesting. It is more an argument for allowing designers some room to do those kinds of things if it feels right, and not always interpreting things in the worst possible light (because we can see how WOTC's fear of making the wrong step in this has led them to simply say Dark Sun can't even be done). I think if the flagship game for Sword and Sorcery can't do basic S&S tropes and sword and sandal tropes, there is an issue of creative constriction going on.

But the major "moral constriction" is... stop being terrible to people. How is it restrictive to say "you know, you really shouldn't depict homosexual men as degenerate perverts LIKE HAS BEEN DONE FOR DECADES"? I mean, sure, I guess it is technically a restriction, but it isn't like we don't know what it looks like to depict someone like that, it has been done and done and done and done.

Most of these things are "you know that harmful thing you've done for decades, that you've never really thought about or challenged. Can you stop it?" And if someone wants to make something focusing on these tired tropes of terrible things... no one really can stop them. nuTSR isn't being sued because they made a horribly racist game, they are being sued because they stole intellectual property. If they hadn't done that, then they could have freely made a game that called on all those tropes from early science fiction.

I think I'm just... tired of it. I don't need to see a man walk into a bar and being berated, jeered, beaten and dumped on because of his race/sexuality/ect. I've seen that. I've seen that trope dozens upon dozens of times. If I really felt it was appropriate to the story we wanted to tell, I could easily include it without it being baked into the core assumptions of the game.

Meanwhile, previous "moral restrictions" were about being LESS INCLUSIVE. Which is a MAJOR change to this discussion. They were often rife with restrictions that were sexist, racist, ect. The exact opposite of what we are talking about.

 

[Guest 85555]

The increasingly moral framework of not glorifying racism/sexism/violence and lies about minorities?

I would say the increasing focus on purifying language and media, and on seeming to only prioritize these issues. I would also say a framework that increasingly reads things which aren't the glorifications you describe as such.

I am not saying that these aren't important issues or that flagrantly offensive speech is something to give a pass. Just we have reached a point where fairly mild things are now being flagged as entirely unacceptable (potentially to the point that the things which are fundamental to the core play of the hobby are being problematized)

 

[Guest 85555]

But the major "moral constriction" is... stop being terrible to people.

No it really isn't. It is about controlling art, controlling RPG content and deciding for others what constitutes terrible (and it often seems that bar is set ridiculously low)

 

[Chaosmancer]

No one disparages chewy because he will rip your arms off. It has been a while since I have seen Star Wars but I will just say, the WWII themes are pretty strong in that movie as Bagpuss points out. But Star Wars is also the opposite of the kind of media I am talking about. And to be clear I want things like star wars to exist. I think there is definitely a place for more optimistic and hopeful movies, games, shows, etc. But I also want stuff like Dirty Harry, Taxi Driver and the kinds of movies Star Wars was a reaction to, to exist. With games I think it is important to at least have some amount of flavorful content in that respect that can veer into dark territory without it automatically being seen as problematic or as an endorsement (i.e. if there is slavery in a setting, that isn't an endorsement of slavery; hatred between two fictional races isn't necessarily saying anything at all about real world race relations, nor is it an endorsement of bigotry or an attempt to exclude people).

And four or five years ago, if you told me I was overreacting or being ridiculous, I think you might have had a point, as it wasn't as clear where this is going. But at that time we were just talking about whether evil orcs were racist, and all the things people expressed concern about happening seem to have passed (at least in terms of constraining creative choices). We are at a point in the hobby where the core activity: going into dungeons, killing monsters and/or stealing their treasure, is widely equated with colonialism and seem by a not insignificant number of people as a problem that needs to be fixed. I just think many of these things, while they are no doubt done with the best of intentions, are very quickly making the games less interesting and even less gameable.

Have you ever encountered the story "Les Miserables"? I'd say it goes to some dark territory, that "flavor" that you want.

Is there any racism in it? Is there any slavery in it? If it is possible to have a story with dark elements and the right "flavor" without racism and slavery... then why is removing racism and slavery getting rid of the flavor?

 

[Guest 85555]

How is it restrictive to say "you know, you really shouldn't depict homosexual men as degenerate perverts LIKE HAS BEEN DONE FOR DECADES"?

I don't think anyone is advocating for this at all. If anything the people who are arguing against you would just want to see homosexual characters get to be full range of interesting choices any other group gets to be (including villains and degenerates because those are interesting but not limited to those). Obviously if someone makes a game that is essentially a diatribe against homosexuality that is a bad thing. The problem is things that aren't that are getting interpreted that way. And in the RPG space, things are getting extremely difficult for creatives to navigate because it is all about optics, not about intent, not about nuance.