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

[Guest 85555]

Your entire argument is based on this idea that all art will become grey, bland, and pointless (like gruel) because of criticism. But art criticism has always existed. Always. Black Metal started in the 80's, and it still exists today, and it doesn't seem like criticism of it is going to wash it away in a sea of overwrought PC culture. But you want us to stop striving to do better, out of fear that THIS time we will go too far and ruin all art forever.

Again, I have no issue with criticism. I don't know why you keep saying I do. Like I said, conversations like this one are fine, and I encourage them. What I don't like is where these conversations sometimes go in terms of it becoming harder and harder for people to make the kind of art they would like to make (and not because a single criticism has been leveled, but because of the state of the culture at the moment and the way companies and publishers run away from a hint of controversy). It isn't even necessarily the critics fault (though I do think people should understand the power they wield when they go beyond criticism and bring together an active movement to have something removed or not made).

And I never said everything will be bland. I said over and over, great art can be made despite these kinds of moral restrictions being imposed on them (and I pointed to Bride of Frankenstein as an example). My contention is more that putting a priority on wholesomeness, morality and the responsibility of art to society like this tends to lead to blander art. It is what produces things like the show Growing Pains.

 

[Chaosmancer]

There's a 5th and 6th

5) Convert the 2 races into their own things and allow mixed races be an option for them.
6) Create Layered lineages to layer traits of one race onto another.

Just thought of a 7th.
7) Create a Hybird version of each race and allow players to put any 2 together.

5) So, take two of the mixed races, and continue to promote them as somehow being more special than all the other ones? That is just option #3 with more steps.

6) that's the feat option, which I did forget about, but it does have some problems as well.

7) How is this different from #1 or #2? This is still a massive undertaking where they basically have to design every race twice, and then go through and make sure none of the combos are broken. And when the game has as many races and subraces as it does? That is a nightmare of balance.

 

[Guest 85555]

Sure, I don't tend to protest things just for the sake of protesting. That isn't what i happening here. So your grim predictions of a grey future aren't needed.

Except we are seeing an impact on what is feasible here. Again, ten or twenty years ago, these arguments about orcs, colonialism, etc being baked into D&D, would have been a joke (people would have understood the academic basis of those arguments but would have found it silly to apply them to dungeon crawling). Now Dark Sun isn't being made. I can say with certainty creators are generally feeling the pressure to not say or do anything that gets perceived as wrong and that this is making for an icy creative environment for a lot of people. And again you see it on things like streaming platforms where episodes are taken down, or on Amazon where movies are edited and it isn't even mentioned to anyone that the edits have taken place.

 

[Justice and Rule]

No one is saying you can't have games about exploration or dungeon crawling. They aren't saying you can't fight monsters during those dungeon crawls or explorations.

What they are saying is that it is really obvious that there are some very troubling things going on when the goal of exploring is to find some people living in nomadic clans, slaughter them wholesale, and steal their property. I've played plenty of adventures where we explored dungeons and DIDN'T have a group of people living in that dungeon whom we had to slaughter wholesale. It is possible. It is still fun.

But this seems to be such an alien idea to some people, like the concept that you DON'T have to murder humanoids who live differently than the PCs is some strange and alien concept that is best handled by a different game.

Yeah, I feel like this is a topic for a different thread, but there are plenty of reasons to explore regions that don't involve killing whatever lives there because it's on the lower-end of the D&D color wheel. You can be commissioned to find lost cities, discover forgotten passes through mountains, chart massive areas and find out who lives there, to communicate and document.

Maybe, but I think that could get messy too. Because then you have to give everyone two feats at first level, and then you have to question if humans can get three feats at first level. And then you have to deal with people who want to pick non-lineage feats for their extra feats.

It could be done, but it would also be easy to do wrong.

It's harder to do with a system like D&D 5E which isn't based in an ala carte feat system, but I think it's still doable. You just have to figure out how to split up the different parts of lineages/ancestries to get the right mix. If you do, it allows just about any combination of different parents.

 

[Guest 85555]

So I can't tell a multi-billion dollar company that I don't particularly want racism baked into the game, because some small time artist might, maybe, get descended upon by a crowd of people and have their livelihood disrupted? I see you mention he lost grant money, but I decided to look this guy up.

You can say whatever you want to WOTC. My point is people using this moral argument about colonialism to move dungeons and wilderness exploration out of the game (at least the classic: kill things and take their stuff) are doing a disservice to the hobby in the same way that a disservice was done to art when people were morally outraged about Piss Christ.

Piss Christ happened in 1987. In 2010 he released a movie. In 2013 he did a large scale project featuring the homeless of New York. He seems like he did quite fine after this event that you keep bringing up, as though it thoroughly and forever ruined his career. It is also interesting that you bring this event from the 80's up.

The man received death threats. It clearly had an impact on him. That he continued despite all that says a lot about him, but it doesn't excuse or justify the mob mentality that tried to destroy him and his career.

Because have you looked into the whole "cancel culture" thing? This idea that all these people are getting canceled for their ideas? The vast majority of the wealthy artists and influencers and actors who got "canceled"... are still wealthy artists, influencers and actors and still making products and making money off those

We have covered this subject before and don't agree. I don't think we are going to move the needle much further in this conversation. I think cancel culture is definitely real. Waning, hopefully, but real. Just because everyone isn't definitively canceled that doesn't mean it isn't having a massive effect on art and on artists and creators. And in a hobby like RPGs, where people are just barely getting by, I promise you that the threat of being canceled weighs heavily on most creators. But my concerns with this are actually not even as much with the artists as with fans, because they are often the ones who do get canceled for saying the wrong thing on social media, and it being reframed to a broader audience. Those aren't people in a position to survive that. And when people try to cancel you, they go after you personally. It affects your ability to get work, it affects your family life, and it affects your mental. I had a small semi-successful cancelation attempt and I am still in therapy over it. I almost killed myself over it. And there are many other people out there who have had similar experiences or seen something similar happen to someone. And most of them don't say anything because they are afraid of being attacked by groups of people online themselves.

Yet I bet you if I went to look at the places where those people protest against the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people, I won't see a person like you cautioning them against going too far and ruining art.

To me, all these forms of censorship are bad. If this were a thread about why WOTC shouldn't include gay characters because they are a huge company and it might drive away potential new players, and make people who are religious feel less welcome, I would say the same things I am saying here. If you don't see me warning protesters at those events it's because I don't go to those events. I mostly just post on gaming forums.

 

[Guest 85555]

And why is there something fun about kicking in the door of someone's home and slaughtering them?

Because it's a dice game where you play warriors, wizards and thieves, and killing goblins in their lair is entertaining. Plus it doesn't go beyond the game. It is cathartic. Nothing more.

 

[Guest 85555]

How else do you describe the orcs, goblins and lizardfolk living in the region where you are hunting and killing them, sometimes for generations? If I can't call them the "native people" of the region, what should I call them?

if they life in the dungeon I might call them residents of the lair. But they may not be the original inhabitants (it is pretty classic to have a dungeon once inhabited by dwarves or some other group, but who were slaughtered by the monsters presently controlling the dungeon). For wilderness they may also be wandering monsters passing through (maybe they are locals, maybe they are not). They could be invaders. It varies a lot in the specifics

And you keep framing the "core activity" solely in the realm of killing those enemies to steal their property. But that framing is incorrect.

Killing things and taking their stuff is a way many people describe the game. Obviously it is short hand and reductive. But there is truth to the idea that the game is about going into dungeons and facing monsters, and going into the wilderness and facing monsters.

 

[Minigiant]

5) So, take two of the mixed races, and continue to promote them as somehow being more special than all the other ones? That is just option #3 with more steps.

6) that's the feat option, which I did forget about, but it does have some problems as well.

7) How is this different from #1 or #2? This is still a massive undertaking where they basically have to design every race twice, and then go through and make sure none of the combos are broken. And when the game has as many races and subraces as it does? That is a nightmare of balance.

You are acting the WOTC put tons of effort into balancing races in the PHB and DMG.

#6 is the Linage option.
#7 is actually not that much work as they won't stress over balance.

 

[Mecheon]

This doesn't seem relevant to the topic at hand, buuuut...

Except we are seeing an impact on what is feasible here. Again, ten or twenty years ago, these arguments about orcs, colonialism, etc being baked into D&D, would have been a joke (people would have understood the academic basis of those arguments but would have found it silly to apply them to dungeon crawling). Now Dark Sun isn't being made. I can say with certainty creators are generally feeling the pressure to not say or do anything that gets perceived as wrong and that this is making for an icy creative environment for a lot of people. And again you see it on things like streaming platforms where episodes are taken down, or on Amazon where movies are edited and it isn't even mentioned to anyone that the edits have taken place.

If I can just, dig into that last point. you do know works have been edited for absolute decades, right? Like, just for a famous example, the original Nancy Drew books were edited to keep with the times and not be with, Certain Words Used in 1930s America. Which are obviously dated things. You can't just put stuff published 20 years ago out today and expect it to have a good reception and not being seen as dated at best, offensive at worse.

Its rare you can get a truly timeless work. For something to be timeless, it needs to be adjusted and revamped to go along with time, because people and things just, change over time.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Darths and Droids is great. I need to go back to it; I haven't paid attention in a long time and I'm kind of interested in how they fix up the Sequel trilogy.

I got back into reading it once, and got part way through the prequels... and then fell off it again. It is amazing, but I just can't keep it all in my head to follow the sub-plots. Plus, I keep getting stupidly busy with other things.