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

[Guest 85555]

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?

Again, I never said the only way to do a good story or the only way to do a dark story was to have it be about racism and slavery. I said taking those things off the table as a choice is bad, and that they can be very interesting and effective choices. Not that they should be in everything.

 

[Faolyn]

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.

There is no reason to care about those people who assume that non white-male-straight people were hired to be tokens. They can be safely ignored as bigots, unless the minority people who were hired themselves say they were being treated as tokens.

No. I do not see how you get that from what I said. Just don't use them in a way that exploits them for marketing or reduces them to an identity you want to highlight. By all mean put people out in front but essentially don't brag about your diversity efforts. Do it for its own sake

I got that from reading what you have said.

Pick some non-white/male/straight creators. Do you feel that their work is sub-par in some way? If not, then you are literally saying the only reason they were hired is to be a token. Oh, wait, that "some people" might think they were only hired to be a token.

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).

It's like I said with the half-elves. The fault isn't the half-elves, it's with the bigoted elves and humans, and thus any mention of bigotry should be in the descriptions of the elves and humans.

If a person happens to be Black/Asian/female/transgender/gay/whatever, then any "seed of doubt" is in the fault of the person who is thinking that they were hired to be marketable, not in the fault of the creator. And, in fact, in order to help those bigots who believe this, more diverse people should be publicly hired so that people get used to the whole idea.

 

[Guest 85555]

I don't think any important women or minority designers have been glossed over.

I definitely think they have, in the Ravenloft threads I had to bring up the names of female contributors (who were vital to the line) multiple times

But the fact that there were one or two such designers for every twenty or fifty white male designers simply isn't enough. You can't say "here's a woman, that means we're not sexist!" If you don't want to be bigoted then the number of woman, non-binary people, non-white people, gay people, transgender people, etc., who work in this field needs to increase until it's no longer noteworthy that they exist.

I never said it was enough. All I said was don't down play it, to make a point about the present. That is all. That isn't an attempt to say things were perfect before. As I said, i was not arguing it was some golden age. I am saying it is more complicated than the narratives people tell

 

[Guest 85555]

There is no reason to care about those people who assume that non white-male-straight people were hired to be tokens. They can be safely ignored as bigots, unless the minority people who were hired themselves say they were being treated as tokens.

You dismiss a lot of people as bigots. Some people who assume this may be bigots. Others may just be skeptical of the company's motives when they make that the sole focus of their marketing. It isn't so black and white as you think

 

[Guest 85555]

I got that from reading what you have said.

Pick some non-white/male/straight creators. Do you feel that their work is sub-par in some way? If not, then you are literally saying the only reason they were hired is to be a token. Oh, wait, that "some people" might think they were only hired to be a token.

You are reading things into what I wrote that are not there

 

[Guest 85555]

It's like I said with the half-elves. The fault isn't the half-elves, it's with the bigoted elves and humans, and thus any mention of bigotry should be in the descriptions of the elves and humans.

As a matter of clarity I agree it should be in those entries. But I don't think it is a question of blame: they are fictional races. I don't need the books to tell me how to feel about elven bigotry, just to tell me it exists.

If a person happens to be Black/Asian/female/transgender/gay/whatever, then any "seed of doubt" is in the fault of the person who is thinking that they were hired to be marketable, not in the fault of the creator. And, in fact, in order to help those bigots who believe this, more diverse people should be publicly hired so that people get used to the whole idea.

Look, if companies are doing this with marketing in mind, people will naturally wonder how much of it was a decision based on the marketing potential. That isn't a good scenario for the people hired, and it is a problem if you are genuinely interested in advancing diversity and increasing empathy. If companies simply don't make it a point of the marketing (and to be clear I don't mean hide the fact that they have hired minority designers, but simply not make that the point or the focus of the marketing), then that doubt will not exist. I am saying market them like they would any other book

 

[Faolyn]

Is that sort of plot "sufficiently bad"? Emotional manipulation, gaslighting, invasion, war, subjugation. In a children's show.

MLP also has some very questionable thoughts on mind-control magic that are definitely not "childish."

The She-Ra reboot also has all of the above and includes child soldiers. The cartoon Centaurworld was all about warfare, had characters who were literally traumatized by war, and came with a heavy dosage of body dysmorphia as the main character was transformed over the course of several episodes of into a bizarrely distorted version of her original form, and another episode of that literally had a creature talk the main character into effectively committing suicide by insinuating it would end her sadness. The fact that this manipulation came in the form of a happy-sounding song doesn't change the fact it was pretty horrific. And the actual villain of the show was pretty darn terrifying.

I think people who believe that childrens shows are childish don't realize that cartoons aren't just the Saturday morning toy-commercial shows of the '80s.

 

[Guest 85555]

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.

i think it is more complicated than that. Some were, but some were focused on other things, and some that did make things less inclusive did so indirectly (it wasn't always the sole aim). But the focus of many of the restriction efforts ranged a lot. I mean old media in general was less inclusive. But these restrictions could be focused on a range of propriety concerns (from fear of communism, to concerns about sex, to focus on extreme levels of politeness around identity issues, like you had with political correctness or like you have now). To me it seems what most of these restrictions have in common is they tend to prioritize one virtue above all else and set up a kind of evil to look for. They can even be laudable things. It just tends to work out badly when you take an inquisitorial approach to art and creative expression (even if it's in the name of a good cause).

 

[Guest 85555]

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?

I haven't played Theros so I don't know. But it doesn't sound like the harsh post apocalyptic strong social fiction messaging setting that Dark Sun was (where I think you lose it's essential if you take out those ugly elements). Again though why can't we have these things? Not every setting is going to include them. But why take them off the table entirely here, or insist on a particular way of doing them? No one is using Dark Sun as an argument for slavery being a good thing. It is obviously not meant to be a moral good in that setting.

 

[Guest 85555]

I literally have no idea what you mean about "charitable conversations" here.

I think it is pretty clear. I mean not reading peoples posts in the worst possible light. For example when I said they should do diversity but not make it part of the marketing (with a few sentences explaining what I meant). I think it was uncharitable to characterize my post as "So basically, keep the minorities in the background so it doesn't lower the property game's value."

Also, for the most part, people aren't accused of racism just because they disagree with a particular thing. If they're accused of racism, it's nearly always because they've actually said or done something racist.

No they are in fact frequently accused of it for things like saying orcs are not racist, or for not agreeing that orcs are stand ins for mongols, or for disagreeing with points about how systemic racism operates in society (and to what degree). Or they are called such for saying something like "I think we can still include slavery in an RPG" (to which they may be accused of racism because the argument goes they are not welcoming). Now maybe you are working with an expanded definition that would be able to apply racist as a label to all that. But if you are, I think it is obvious it is being used to equivocate so that the broader meaning is being used conveniently to get the power of the more narrow meaning of hateful bigotry or belief in inferiority based on race.

It's just that a lot of people have internalized racism or other forms of bigotry to the point where it's normal for them, so they see someone say something "normal" and get upset when it's pointed out that no, it's actually bigoted. And they get upset because to them, those thoughts are normal.

Perhaps but a lot of this stuff is pretty esoteric. Especially when you are talking about tropes in media that can be interpreted many different ways.