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

[Vaalingrade]

Racism is a story tool that ppl (like me) don't want to see discarded or left out the tool box.

To some people, racism is a fun tool that means nothing to them other than idle japes.

To others, it's a thing that exists right now to justify lowering our quality of life or even just end our lives. For some reason, we don't want it baked into the core rules of our hobby.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I still don't believe the character is meant to be a warlord (also don't think it is a warlord era movie but again I could be wrong as the time period isn't essential to the plot(. Possible I am wrong, but the movie just doesn't convey that to me. But you can throw in any other example where you have bandits who have risen up from poverty or something, or other types of characters. The villain in Reign of Assassins for example, while he holds a position of power is certainly downtrodden in the sense that he was castrated and is desperately seeking a relic that he believes can reverse the process. It makes for a much more compelling villain actual because he has some pathos to him. You could read it as a story of punching up, but you could also read it as a story of punching down if you examine it more from his point of view (he even says to the main character "is it too much to ask to be a regular man" (and points out she has been allowed to retire and find a husband---so why can't he have what he wants?). The point of allowing for punching in all directions isn't so we can revel in hurting people who are weak or marginalized, it is because there are interesting characters and interesting villains to be found from all walks of life (and villains are often the best characters in a movie). It gets kind of corny when the bad guys are always elites in positions of power.

You can definitely have downtrodden villains though. In a lot of these kinds of scenarios bad guys are people who are down on their luck just like the hero but take another course. People don't usually become bandits because they were already living a luxurious lifestyle. My point is just if it works, it doesn't matter which direction the hero punching. I think in most movies you are going to see them do what people now would call punching up. And that makes sense because it is easier to sympathize with characters who punch up. But I don't think we need to place an artificial limit on that.

But it isn't an artificial limit. Why do you think it is artificial? Just because we point to it as an ideal? Well then it is an artificial limit that you should emotionally connect with an audience too by having the main character show humanity.

And, again, you are the one who brought up these movies and how this type of violence is okay. I'm just pointing out the tropes that are obvious. The Wheel King uses his "low-class" position as a cover for being the master of a criminal organization. Sure, he was castrated as a boy, but as a man he can have people buried alive for mocking him. Imagine for a moment that the person that his criminal organization attacked WASN'T a former assassin, but was what she wanted to be, a simple shopkeeper. What would have happened to the plot? She'd have been murdered. Just like what would happen to any normal person who receives the direct ire of a criminal master like this.

Yes, motivation is important for a villain, but that is separate from what we are discussing, and this whole line of discussion is you trying to make some esoteric point that since we have movies that use violence artistically we should be okay with movies that use racism.... WHICH WE ARE! No one tried to cancel Will Smith for starring in Emancipation last year, a story about slavery in the South. But people might be a bit upset if the newest game of Sid Meyer's Civilization had a mechanic to engage in the Slave Trade. Because those two things are different. And no, it wouldn't be censorship to tell Meyer that no one wants that in the game, regardless of any "artistic vision" he might have. And the fact that he knows that isn't some form of insidious toxic purity culture.

We are just going to have to disagree here. I feel like in this thread and others I have given evidence. If I think of any more I will provide it. But We have been going back and forth for a long time, so I feel like it is unlikely any further evidence i provide will persuade you (and I am not saying you are being stubborn or bent on not hearing me, I just don't think there is evidence I can give at this point that will move the discussion)

Further evidence? You've given NO evidence. All you've done is make assertions and talk about things from 50 or 40 years ago as though they are signs of the degradation of modern culture. But what is going on now is not identical to what was happening in the 70's or 80's.

No but we can tell that he, John Wick and probably most of the men in his organization weren't born in luxury. Again I could be wrong about that, as I haven't read the John Wick source material or I could have missed a line of dialogue, but with Viggo especially I thought the contrast between him and his son was that he rose up and made his way from humble roots, while the son was born into the lifestyle and didn't have that struggle so he just didn't understand things the way Viggo did.

And I agree usually the bosses in these movies are powerful and wealthy. Like I said in my other post, it is easier to root for a hero fighting a powerful figure than a weak one. But there are also movies with more street level villains too. And I don't see why poor people should be excluded from the villain role in a movie. As I said in the other post, I would probably find a villain with those kinds of struggles more compelling.

Right, punching up. You attack powerful figures, not weak ones. That doesn't exclusively mean rich old white dudes, that means that the power dynamic has to be such that you are fighting against power. If your villain is a street level thug, then the main character is even weaker than them. That's the point.

You usually don't have a show about a serial killer stalking a military base, because the power dynamic is bizarre. Unless the serial killer is supernatural, because then the power dynamic makes sense again.

I haven't seen the fourth movie yet (still trying to get the wife to go). But I would love for the Bowery King to be a villain. Again, I don't really see a problem here, provided the downtrodden are antagonists (I mean yes if he is going into the streets and murdering homeless people who aren't doing anything, that would be weird, but if he were being attacked by homeless people sent after him, I wouldn't have a problem with that (especially if they have a solid motivation like the other villains have).

Again I just don't think the punching up thing is as true as people want it to be. Yes it's a general trend for a reason in most movies. That doesn't mean it needs to be an unbreakable rule, or that there is anything immortal about a movie where the bad guys are downtrodden

And yet you have not been able to name a movie with a villain who is less powerful than the hero. That's for a reason. Sure, it isn't an unbreakable titanium-braced rule... but nothing is. However, we don't say that this is a true thing for no reason. There are reasons we make the claims we make. Because they pan out again and again. Robo-cop involves punching down, the "hero" of the movie is clearly destroying a criminal organization far weaker than him... but he's also the monster. That's the point. And Robo-cop isn't about glorifying violence.

And yet again, no one has been calling for the banning of these movies. No one has been calling to have them removed from theaters, because these movies are different than the games were play. Different mediums, different expectations.

I don't play 5E so I can't really answer that as well as another poster. But I don't have a problem with the game designating orcs as monsters and calling their headquarters lairs (though I just threw lairs out there as a term). Like I said there is a place for something mythic like venturing into the wilderness or a dungeon and slaying monsters.

Of course you don't. Really shocking that the people who are most against the direction DnD is going are the people who don't play the modern version of the game.

And there is nothing mythical about slaying people to steal their stuff. And it is really easy to have things that are mythical by having them fight unique enemies. Beowulf didn't slay some random nest of monsters, he slew Grendel, descendant of Cain. If you want a mythical journey, you don't use orcs and goblins anyways in the modern game.

Personally I think making orcs playable was a big mistake. But you can still do that the way we did with Drow, where the majority of orcs are evil, but you have exceptions. There are ways to make it work.

But you are listing off benevolent entries in the monster manual. Orcs were set up as adversaries (they even look like what one expects a monster to look like).

I don't care if you think it was a mistake. They have been playable since 2e. Thirty years ago. We have had three editions of the game since then. It is beyond time for Wizards to finally bite that bullet. It wasn't like it was hard for all the OTHER playable races to not been seen as purely monsters.

I don't think so

Then it seems strange to me that you insist that I must continue to use the othering language. If it wasn't clear to you, why object so strenuously to calling orcs "native" to the land they are in? Why push back so hard that they should live in "outposts" and "lairs". Why keep insisting that they must be monsters? If you don't think that after stripping that language out, there isn't a clear sign of what others are seeing, why are you so determined to keep that language in? Because it shouldn't make a difference to you if we keep it or change it, if it doesn't make a difference in how the situation reads.

I understand but I would push back on the idea that orcs are people (at least as they were understood in the 1E Half Orc entry).Though I do understand that the concept of personhood is a complicated one and not exactly settled. So I would ask if there were a race of monsters that existed on earth, and who were sapient, had free will but were naturally predisposed to hate humans and seek to harm them, would we refer to them as people?

Yes

Is just being sapient and free willed enough to make something a person?

Not quite, there are a few other things

Can some other drive or element be present with sapients and free will that takes them outside the realm of being a person?

Nope, and that is awfully dangerous territory you are skirting.

 

[Chaosmancer]

This does nothing to disprove what I said. The news happens in the real world, and there are other considerations than the news media which I will not get into on this forum.

My point is specific to games. Studies have been done and you are just wrong.

Studies have been done on the connection between violence and violent games. Studies have not been done that stereotypes in games are somehow fundamentally different than stereotypes in written media. Especially since you somehow think news doesn't engage in storytelling.

Cool. What you do in games does not affect what you do in real life. Studies have been done.

Studies have been done to show that violent games do not cause violent people. However, games absolutely can affect what you do in real life. You can't create emotional impacts that have no impact.

Could be any of them. No way to really tell from the picture.

Yes there is. Because that isn't artwork of a standard human from one of those cities.

They can use any armor in the book. The non-exhaustive example stat block is...............non-exhaustive. And in any case chain mail is more than 99.99% of the humans that live in Neverwinder, Baldur's Gate and Silverymoon wear.

As for the default armor. In 1e that had a default AC of 6 which was scale mail and a shield(the picture showed them mostly using shields) or else chain mail and no shield. 3.5 defaulted them to studded leather which meant the ability to cure hides to create the armor and the ability to forge the studs used in the armor itself. 5e defaults the normal orc to hide in the non-exhaustive stat block, but says this "You can equip monsters with additional gear and trinkets however you like, using the equipment chapter of the Player's Handbook for inspiration..." so if you want your orcs to all wear plate mail, they do.

Seriously? You are trying the "but you can give them any armor" to try and prove that orc technology is equal to the technology of elves, dwarves and humans? Guess that means Ogres are the most technologically advanced race on Greyhawk, since I can just equip them with power armor and laser rifles.

If you aren't going to try and make serious points, why even bother posting Max? They specifically, and repeatedly, demonstrate in the books that orcs lack many, many of the things that the "civilized" races used. The parallels are obvious.

 

[Horwath]

"Dear Orcs, we know you haven't done anything, but your great-great grandfather's took this land from us. Vacate, or be exterminated" Yeah, that is OBVIOUSLY going to go well. Because we all know people who were born and raised in a land are always incredibly eager to accommodate hundred year old claims to the land from others

well if ownership of land does not apply, guess they will go to the old and faithful method of; Might makes right. That is so much civilized...

Why Not? Because it is simplistic and derivative. Because it plays directly into harmful stereotypes of "Savage nomadic raiders" that have been used to justify violence for millenia. Because we can craft far more interesting stories than "here are a people who have no culture beyond kill and pillage others"

I've seen that lots of people like having few simplistic default evil "somewhat humanoid" races.
If you do not want to built too much of a story, that kind of tool helps.

why not leave that job to the orcs? To be The Enemy. That evil force of destruction that is just evil because.
maybe Gruumsh just cursed them with bloodlust, few may escape it, but not enough to make any real change in orc society.

Then, if you want more complex (evil) enemies, there can be kingdoms of humans, elves, dwarves that are more on bad than on the good side.

The thing is, we keep getting told "but other settings can be different" but they aren't. They always follow the baseline. Now, for the first time, that might start changing, because we are changing the default, and people want to drag us back to the same old same old.

True, that is irritating.
Orcs from all settings should not be the same, nor elves or humans or dwarves or whatever.

That should be a reason for different settings. To make them different.

 

[Incenjucar]

Depictions of species can reasonably vary based on their actual abilities. Human society being a bit more technologically advanced than most others makes sense because being skilled is the human niche. Orcs, elves, and dwarves should be about equal in advancement, with their expression of it varying. Because orcs have much shorter lives, they should be up on the latest tech more than elves and dwarves - the longer-lived species should be amazing at creating and using their out-of-date tech, making the equivalent of shaker furniture while the orcs are luxuriating in the equivalent of Ikea.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

I've seen that lots of people like having few simplistic default evil "somewhat humanoid" races.
If you do not want to built too much of a story, that kind of tool helps.

That's part of where orcs don't fit the description to me. The second they're playable (even partially so with half orcs) it's being suggested that they're not just always evil beasts. From then on they can be any alignment the player wants their character to be.

As for the 'int 7 always evil humanoids', I think it's the 'always evil' which is part of what makes them problematic. It might be better to make them neutral or even unaligned in the same way as a lion is. And what makes them antagonistic is being predators of sapient species, just like lions. They're just smart enough to make tools and more complex plans to go about their hunts, as would be needed if your main food source is sapients. I'd probably even use beasts rather than humanoids as the creature type if i was to go about making a species to fill that role.

A zebra might consider a lion to be evil, but the lion is just catching the food it needs to survive.

 

[Guest 85555]

But it isn't an artificial limit. Why do you think it is artificial? Just because we point to it as an ideal? Well then it is an artificial limit that you should emotionally connect with an audience too by having the main character show humanity.

True it is based on something that tends to work like I said. But I think when it becomes an artificial limit, and perhaps you are not doing this, is when people say protagonists should or must punch up in these kinds of films. I get that you generally want to see a hero going after a worthy foe. My point is a homeless character can be just as worthy as a villain as a white rich baron.

Also there is nothing wrong with showing the humanity of the villain too, and if you explore villains and bad guys who aren't just sitting in a penthouse suite at the top of the food chain, you can get more interesting and villains with pathos sometimes

We might not disagree as much as we think here. I don't know. I am not saying this isn't grounded in something real just that putting some kind of cap on it as a rule is bad (and I am not a huge fan when critics go after a piece of media because they feel the hero or writer isn't punching up----it just doesn't strike me as a good criticism if the set up works otherwise.

And, again, you are the one who brought up these movies and how this type of violence is okay. I'm just pointing out the tropes that are obvious. The Wheel King uses his "low-class" position as a cover for being the master of a criminal organization. Sure, he was castrated as a boy, but as a man he can have people buried alive for mocking him. Imagine for a moment that the person that his criminal organization attacked WASN'T a former assassin, but was what she wanted to be, a simple shopkeeper. What would have happened to the plot? She'd have been murdered. Just like what would happen to any normal person who receives the direct ire of a criminal master like this.

The wheel king isn't low class. We don't really know much about him, but he seems to have a lot of resources and influence, and I am guessing he is or was a palace eunuch. I get the rest of what you are saying, I am not saying he is a good guy. But I am saying he is a character who is a victim of people who held greater power over him and I think you can make the case that he is a marginalized figure too (his argument actually does make some sense, the Michelle Yeoh character he is appealing to has only just recently had her own insight against living a life of violence and frankly he almost seems on the cusp of it as well). You can even make an argument I think that had Yeoh's character showed him more compassion during that appeal, the outcome would be very different. That doesn't wipe away his sins of burying people alive (though the woman he buried alive was a raging psycho)---but he clearly has serious serious issues. To be clear though I am not advocating for any changes to the story. It works wonderfully as written and all the themes connect nicely (he is the wheel king after all so he needs to be that role at the end of the movie). I am just pointing out he strikes me as an example of a villain who is a lot more downtrodden (still very much a villain but much more interesting because of the complexity added in with his motivations and background)

Yes, motivation is important for a villain, but that is separate from what we are discussing, and this whole line of discussion is you trying to make some esoteric point that since we have movies that use violence artistically we should be okay with movies that use racism.... WHICH WE ARE! No one tried to cancel Will Smith for starring in Emancipation last year, a story about slavery in the South. But people might be a bit upset if the newest game of Sid Meyer's Civilization had a mechanic to engage in the Slave Trade. Because those two things are different. And no, it wouldn't be censorship to tell Meyer that no one wants that in the game, regardless of any "artistic vision" he might have. And the fact that he knows that isn't some form of insidious toxic purity culture.

I am happy to bring it back to a previous topic if we got steered off course by this tangent. Frankly I don't remember the details of how we arrived here. So I won't push the point further if you don't want me to

 

[Remathilis]

I was going to say that this thread was better when it wasn't another Always Evil Orcs and Drow thread, but it really wasn't that good to begin with...

 

[AnotherGuy]

To some people, racism is a fun tool that means nothing to them other than idle japes.

Vaalingrade it would be greatly appreciated if you did not paint part of the player base as participating in buffoonery. You know respect and all that.

To others, it's a thing that exists right now to justify lowering our quality of life or even just end our lives.

I can support your right to protest your desires for the game, but I do not support the excising of a storyline tool completely from the game.

As for the dramatisation of end our lives, do you have an example where D&D fluff did just that or is this hyperbole on your part which weakens your argument IMO.

 

[Guest 85555]

And yet you have not been able to name a movie with a villain who is less powerful than the hero. That's for a reason. Sure, it isn't an unbreakable titanium-braced rule... but nothing is. However, we don't say that this is a true thing for no reason. There are reasons we make the claims we make. Because they pan out again and again. Robo-cop involves punching down, the "hero" of the movie is clearly destroying a criminal organization far weaker than him... but he's also the monster. That's the point. And Robo-cop isn't about glorifying violence.

I think there is a difference though between power in the sense of the character being physically more capable and power in the sense of things like wealth, resources, privilege. Robocop isn't a film I would invoke as an example of punching down (except perhaps when he is taking out street level thugs I suppose). In Robocop, the villain is OmniCorp. An organization so powerful they made Robocop (and the president of Omnicorp is practically depicted as God). But to your point you also have villains like Clarence Bodicker and his men who are lower in a way lower I suppose (but Bodicker is still a kingpin).

Is Robocop the monster? I am not so sure about that. I do think he can serve as a commentary on American culture and its love for firearms, but he seems like more of a Jesus figure to me in the film. And a sort of tragic hero who is trying to reconcile his humanity with the transformation OmniCorp has thrust upon him through technology.