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

[Guest 85555]

Okay, I'm not playing the "break every post into a five posts" game anymore.

If we are going to do the thing where people are posting 8 quotes and responding, I am going to take them point by point so I can adequately focus on each one

 

[Chaosmancer]

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).

When double checking the Hays code (one of the ones explicitly mentioned) the entry literally talks about how "concerns about sex" included no representation for LG people (and that's ignoring the BT+ part of the spectrum that was even more repressed) and no having mixed race couples. Whatever else it may have been trying to accomplish, it obviously was trying to be less inclusive.

And sure, the comics code had a lot of restrictions based around wanting comics to be "kids media", but also was explicitly headed by a man who wanted to ban a very good comic because it depicted a heroic black man. And also was explicitly designed, by a comittee of comic book publishers, to put the biggest comic book publisher (who just so happens they didn't invite to the meeting) out of business.

None of which applies to the current situation, or what you are currently talking about. So saying that the situation we find ourselves in today is like that situation, seems to be completely false, over-generalizing everything about the situation.

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.

Where is the RPG Code Authority telling you that you can't have it? Heck, you likely have the entire setting already. All that is happening is WoTC saying "we don't feel like it is a setting we want to make, because it is steeped in bad tropes"

And if you really need it? Check out Dragon Kings, or Revelations of Mars or War of Ashes: Fate of Agaptus or Talislanta: the Savage Land or Under the Dying Sun or Blood and Bronze or Forbidden Lands. All of which I found by simply typing "RPG settings like dark sun" into google. These settings already exist and have an audience, no one is denying them this.

 

[Guest 85555]

And, no, it isn't "just now" that people are noticing that the colonial themes in DnD are a problem. They've noticed it for a long time. There are just only now enough people noticing it that they aren't shouted down and ignored. And, again, shockingly it isn't very difficult to make perfectly fine games that don't fall into those problematic tropes.

The core of D&D is going into dungeons and into wilderness, facing monsters, often killing them, and taking their treasure. There are all other kinds of campaign structures, but that is the drum, bass and guitar of D&D. The game is less effective when you take that away and I think the lens through which you have to read D&D in order to see that as somehow promoting colonialism is extremely byzantine and academic. Something can be connected to the literature that comes from a historical period, but have lost any of its relevance to that. No one is playing D&D and thinking it made Colonialism okay, or that it would be a good idea to colonize or to ignore the history of colonialism.

 

[Guest 85555]

So... can we reduce that? Can we take the slave stories down to like... Mindflayers, Dragons, Devils, Aboleths and Beholders? Can we reduce the number of former slave races? Because THAT is what people are asking for. Not that you can never depict slavery ever, but that maybe we could have less of it so we can have something more interesting? I think we could get rid of baked in racism entirely, the setting doesn't need to note "and all elves hate mixed-breed people" to be good or interesting. You could just have some NPCs do that and be fine.

To be clear there have been posters asking for slavery to not even be in the game. If you are saying there is simply too much, fair enough. That is a whole other discussion. But the Dark Sun thread was predicated on the idea that elements like slavery were simply not tenable in a current day D&D setting

 

[Guest 85555]

When double checking the Hays code (one of the ones explicitly mentioned) the entry literally talks about how "concerns about sex" included no representation for LG people (and that's ignoring the BT+ part of the spectrum that was even more repressed) and no having mixed race couples. Whatever else it may have been trying to accomplish, it obviously was trying to be less inclusive.

Again, I am not saying these waves of restrictions couldn't be (I specifically mentioned how Bride of Frankenstein, a gay themed film, was impacted by the Hays code). My point was that the restrictive efforts can be about all kinds of things considered a moral good at the time.

 

[Guest 85555]

Where is the RPG Code Authority telling you that you can't have it? Heck, you likely have the entire setting already. All that is happening is WoTC saying "we don't feel like it is a setting we want to make, because it is steeped in bad tropes"

There isn't one. I think Tarantino was right when he said we are living through the 80s part II (where he basically meant political correctness and things like PMRC),except we are doing it to ourselves. But wherever this power resides, it is resulting in WOTC saying they can't do Dark Sun, that it just wouldn't be possible because the content is too stepped in 'bad tropes'.

And if you really need it? Check out Dragon Kings, or Revelations of Mars or War of Ashes: Fate of Agaptus or Talislanta: the Savage Land or Under the Dying Sun or Blood and Bronze or Forbidden Lands. All of which I found by simply typing "RPG settings like dark sun" into google. These settings already exist and have an audience, no one is denying them this.

Okay but people want Dark Sun, not dark sun like. I am sure plenty of these games are great. But Dark Sun is a beloved D&D setting and I think it is ashame they won't even consider doing it, and if they do, it is going to have to have all of these elements stripped out.

 

[Guest 85555]

And sure, the comics code had a lot of restrictions based around wanting comics to be "kids media", but also was explicitly headed by a man who wanted to ban a very good comic because it depicted a heroic black man. And also was explicitly designed, by a comittee of comic book publishers, to put the biggest comic book publisher (who just so happens they didn't invite to the meeting) out of business.

None of which applies to the current situation, or what you are currently talking about. So saying that the situation we find ourselves in today is like that situation, seems to be completely false, over-generalizing everything about the situation.

I would say they are very similar. Like I said they aren't identical. But you don't see the similarity because you are examining things soley through this lens of equity and bad tropes. Fundamentally it is about taking something subjective like art, and trying to apply a very rigid and objective moral standard to it. Again, look at all the tropes people are saying we really shouldn't be doing any more. These aren't isnignificant and there is a lot of dispute over what they mean and if they are bad. I think it is really hard to deny with a serious face that creatives in the industry aren't being constrained by all this. And granted it isn't coming from a committee, but efforts to stop and change art can come from protests too. Which I think is what we have in the present moment. That is why I frequently mention the piss christ as an example

 

[Guest 85555]

Yes, I see how someone can be called a racist if they claim that certain modern inequities are not the result of systemic racism.

There is a lot more nuance here in my opinion and a range of views. For example yes there may be people who deny systemic racism because they are racist (I would expect most racists probably fall into that camp as it suits their ideology). But you can also have non-racists who simply don't believe in systemic racism (you can argue they are wrong, but their conclusion about systemic racism isn't a product of racism). Then you may have people who think there is some truth to this idea of systemic racism, but it is kind of simplistic, and creates a narrative that is an all encompassing explanation (I would fall into that camp----I think it is grounded in real disparities but I think the problem is as a narrative it gets overused and misapplied frequently or is used in a way that produces very simplistic solutions----and tends to downplay economic inequality, which is maybe more significant than racial inequality). But I think it does get at some real inequalities in the society we live in. And then you have people who agree 100% with it, but think calling it racism is a problem, because it is a little inaccurate to call it that (they might say call it systematic racial inequality instead).

 

[MGibster]

Who wants Dark Sun? I mean, me, sure, but I'm waaaay outside WotC's core demographic for D&D. And practically speaking, removing any mention of bigotry from the entries in the PHB isn't going to change how the game is actually played. In all my years, I can't recall ever seeing an adventure where a PC experienced some form of discrimination because they were a half-elf, elf, dwarf, or something else except maybe in Ravenloft. But even there is was mostly because they were outsiders not because of their species. Of the changes to D&D over the years, I literally can't think of one that has less of a consequence so far as game play is concerned.

 

[Bagpuss]

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"

It doesn't matter we are already seeing people not willing to publish stuff because of the restrictions of inclusion, and small publishers worried because they can't afford to run things by a sensitivity reader. Publishers editing authors words of their own experience or racism because the words used are offensive, all in the name of "inclusion".

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?

It was the uniforms that were a clear parallel to the WWII uniforms worn by Germans and the SS, I was talking about did you miss that bit?

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.

Yes you can make them just human race supremacists, but is it really a great look to go casting a traditionally oppressed minority on the same side as their former oppressors? (I know in the Star Wars universe that wasn't the case, but they are still real world actors).

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?

It was in parallel stuff in the books, backstory and wider lore that came out around the time. Not just later stuff. Also why was the Wookie put in cuffs, because the humans wouldn't be believable prisoners, compared to the alien. The alien wouldn't be believable on the side of the Empire, clearly race based because he is a Wookie.