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

[Bedrockgames]

Why can't you have Freddy Krueger? Not a single person in this thread has ever objected to showing an individual in a bad light.

Plenty of people have when the discussion is about othering in horror movies. This is a not uncommon conversation because monsters are often seen as the other in commentary on film. I don't even particularly object to that idea, they often are. My point was because the poster mentioned depictions of people who had been othered and the need to avoid that. I was just pointing out these things can do both, they can do what Night Breed did, which is explore monsters as misunderstood, and you can have movies like a Nightmare on Elm Street, or the thing, or you have the Howling, where the monsters are out to eat you but there is one among them trying to civilize the werewolves even though it all goes wrong. You could read that as some kind of othering of primal people, or you could simply read it as a primal evil that is in all people due to our evolution. My point is it isn't as simple as building a list of things you can and can do in building a world, making a movie, etc. Or even just a list that WOTC specifically can't or shouldn't do.

And that's an interesting point. How many monster movies show a RACE of monsters, and entire species instead of a single individual? Very very few of them. And many or them that show a race or species of monsters... doesn't have them capable of communicating with humans.

There are plenty where there are whole groups or races of monsters. Aliens for example. Ghoulies, Puppet Master (albeit a much more nuanced take with some social commentary for sure). Monsters not being able to communicate with humans doesn't necessarily make them any less intelligent or sapient. I think generally though it's easier in movies and in horror in general to focus on one creature.

The objection is painting every individual with the same brush, and that brush being "EVIL because"

Again, it is fantasy, it is fiction. If someone wants to go around painting all Russians as Evil or all Japanese people as evil (or even just all one thing), obviously that is wrong. But a world where you have a monstrous species that behaves in a way humans would consider evil? That is not a problem. It might be dull if that is the only way these things get handled (I think plenty of settings benefit from more fleshed out takes on humanoids and monsters, and I quite like genres where monsters themselves even are very human like and have human needs and desires----A Chinese Ghost Story for example). But I don't see any issue with a game being overly simplistic about good and evil or a writer making a fantasy world decides it would be cool to have legions of evil monsters attacking a fantasy city because the imagery of good versus evil is compelling to them for some reason (it doesn't necessarily mean they would be that reductive when dealing with real conflicts people real people in the world, or that people reading it should come away thinking that its okay to do that).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Why would it be any different to any other non-sapient creature eating a human or elf?

Elf with a nice garlic sauce really hits the spot

 

[Chaosmancer]

We see things very differently. I am not ignoring your points. I even addressed a few. I just don’t think we are going to move the needle on this, so I felt agreeing to disagree on them was the way to go. We come from very different points of view when it comes to media and media tropes, and that is entirely okay. Also I am not dismissing your points, if anything I am letting you have the last say so we can move into something else

I think my issue is that the needle has never moved. Not in a single conversation I have ever seen you involved in. Every time we present a trope, your response is that it doesn't affect the real world so it doesn't matter. Every time. Every trope.

It gets rather frustrating.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I am not saying it can’t affect the world. But I don’t think art has the changing power a lot of people believe it does. I also think misguided efforts to use art for social engineering often just end up constraining free expression, making art a servant to ideology or the state and rarely achieve their objectives.

Art is always a servant of ideology. Realism and Photorealism have ideologies associated with them. Photography often involves politics, social inequality. If art has a message, that message is part of an ideology. And it is weird, you keep limiting the power of art, saying it can't do things, but at the same time you absolutely want to prevent it from being used for purposes it has always been used for.

And there is no "state" here. There is no government reaching down and trying to reshape this art into something better. It is people. It is the community. Those of us who are looking and not seeing what we want to see. And expressing that, even when told we shall bring about the downfall of society...

And I think the most frustrating thing, while we have been quibbling over details, is that you still haven't proven your claim. You still have provided nothing to demonstrate that us asking for racism to be removed from the core books of this game and this product will lead to the entirety of art across society being made bland. You are just arguing slippery slope, that if we do this one thing, inevitably this terrible disaster will occur. But we aren't limiting movies, we aren't limiting home games, we aren't limiting novels. Those are different media with different standards, we are limiting the core books of DnD. That's it.

What troubles me about what we are doing now is it’s very iconoclastic in the original sense, even cultural revolution like. To me it feels like we are throwing old things into the fire and saying art needs to express X, without due consideration to the nuance of artistic expression

Because the "nuance of artistic expression" has bluntly been used to forgive things and convince us to keep them when we don't want them. But even deeper, you are the defender of artistic nuance in this instance, right? But you haven't been able to actually provide answers to what artistic value is under threat.

Yes, some people have stated that they feel the initial change is bad, because of their identity. Others have come forward and said it is good because of the exact same identity. So completely removing all mixed race people from the game would clearly be a mistake.... but they didn't do that. They removed the mechanics. And there are good, non-ideological reasons they might have done that. But even if they did decide to do that... you are policing their decision. Claiming that they cannot possibly have come to that conclusion on their own, but that it MUST be this new culture that throws away all tradition with no consideration for why it exists. But we do consider it. They considered it. And they came to an answer. And you protest. Exactly like we are. You just see us as a threat, because we disagree with you.

And sure parables are an easy way to convey religious teachings but religion isn’t just stories. It’s ritual, doctrine, religious experiences, etc.

My point was you aren’t just at the mercy of D&D tropes or action movie tropes. You bring religious belief, ethics, elements of your upbringing, a critical eye and a range of ideas into the experience. People are able to navigate these things with nuance

But to get that nuance, nuance has to be presented. And it is far too easy for things like DnD tropes to be part of a larger trend, that removes nuance instead of adding it. I want to add nuance. I want to present all people fairly, not just some people. And there are limits, it may be impossible to achieve perfection, but "better than this" is usually possible.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think my issue is that the needle has never moved. Not in a single conversation I have ever seen you involved in. Every time we present a trope, your response is that it doesn't affect the real world so it doesn't matter. Every time. Every trope.

It gets rather frustrating.

It isn’t revealed religious truth though. Just because you present a trope that doesn’t mean I am going to agree with you. I understand it can be frustrating. But we aren’t trying to convert each other, we are giving our opinions and talking. The needle hasn’t moved on the other side either. But I have no expectation that anyone here is going to alter their views of the world or media simply because I make a particular point about a trope

 

[Bedrockgames]

Art is always a servant of ideology.

Does it? I am not so sure this is true anymore than ‘everything’ or ‘all art’ is political is true. Yes people bring perspectives and schools of thought to art. That doesn’t mean all art is reflecting an ideology or advancing one (particularly if we are speaking of political ideologies). Sometimes art is just the expression of an emotion or an experience

 

[Bedrockgames]

Art is always a servant of ideology. Realism and Photorealism have ideologies associated with them. Photography often involves politics, social inequality. If art has a message, that message is part of an ideology. And it is weird, you keep limiting the power of art, saying it can't do things, but at the same time you absolutely want to prevent it from being used for purposes it has always been used for.

And there is no "state" here. There is no government reaching down and trying to reshape this art into something better. It is people. It is the community. Those of us who are looking and not seeing what we want to see. And expressing that, even when told we shall bring about the downfall of society...

And I think the most frustrating thing, while we have been quibbling over details, is that you still haven't proven your claim. You still have provided nothing to demonstrate that us asking for racism to be removed from the core books of this game and this product will lead to the entirety of art across society being made bland. You are just arguing slippery slope, that if we do this one thing, inevitably this terrible disaster will occur. But we aren't limiting movies, we aren't limiting home games, we aren't limiting novels. Those are different media with different standards, we are limiting the core books of DnD. That's it.



Because the "nuance of artistic expression" has bluntly been used to forgive things and convince us to keep them when we don't want them. But even deeper, you are the defender of artistic nuance in this instance, right? But you haven't been able to actually provide answers to what artistic value is under threat.

Yes, some people have stated that they feel the initial change is bad, because of their identity. Others have come forward and said it is good because of the exact same identity. So completely removing all mixed race people from the game would clearly be a mistake.... but they didn't do that. They removed the mechanics. And there are good, non-ideological reasons they might have done that. But even if they did decide to do that... you are policing their decision. Claiming that they cannot possibly have come to that conclusion on their own, but that it MUST be this new culture that throws away all tradition with no consideration for why it exists. But we do consider it. They considered it. And they came to an answer. And you protest. Exactly like we are. You just see us as a threat, because we disagree with you.



But to get that nuance, nuance has to be presented. And it is far too easy for things like DnD tropes to be part of a larger trend, that removes nuance instead of adding it. I want to add nuance. I want to present all people fairly, not just some people. And there are limits, it may be impossible to achieve perfection, but "better than this" is usually possible.

Will get to these points shortly (watching a movie, not ignoring them)

 

[Micah Sweet]

Art is always a servant of ideology. Realism and Photorealism have ideologies associated with them. Photography often involves politics, social inequality. If art has a message, that message is part of an ideology. And it is weird, you keep limiting the power of art, saying it can't do things, but at the same time you absolutely want to prevent it from being used for purposes it has always been used for.

And there is no "state" here. There is no government reaching down and trying to reshape this art into something better. It is people. It is the community. Those of us who are looking and not seeing what we want to see. And expressing that, even when told we shall bring about the downfall of society...

And I think the most frustrating thing, while we have been quibbling over details, is that you still haven't proven your claim. You still have provided nothing to demonstrate that us asking for racism to be removed from the core books of this game and this product will lead to the entirety of art across society being made bland. You are just arguing slippery slope, that if we do this one thing, inevitably this terrible disaster will occur. But we aren't limiting movies, we aren't limiting home games, we aren't limiting novels. Those are different media with different standards, we are limiting the core books of DnD. That's it.



Because the "nuance of artistic expression" has bluntly been used to forgive things and convince us to keep them when we don't want them. But even deeper, you are the defender of artistic nuance in this instance, right? But you haven't been able to actually provide answers to what artistic value is under threat.

Yes, some people have stated that they feel the initial change is bad, because of their identity. Others have come forward and said it is good because of the exact same identity. So completely removing all mixed race people from the game would clearly be a mistake.... but they didn't do that. They removed the mechanics. And there are good, non-ideological reasons they might have done that. But even if they did decide to do that... you are policing their decision. Claiming that they cannot possibly have come to that conclusion on their own, but that it MUST be this new culture that throws away all tradition with no consideration for why it exists. But we do consider it. They considered it. And they came to an answer. And you protest. Exactly like we are. You just see us as a threat, because we disagree with you.



But to get that nuance, nuance has to be presented. And it is far too easy for things like DnD tropes to be part of a larger trend, that removes nuance instead of adding it. I want to add nuance. I want to present all people fairly, not just some people. And there are limits, it may be impossible to achieve perfection, but "better than this" is usually possible.

Nuance requires additional page count, and research, and time, all of which require additional money. Far more likely for WotC to just provide less lore across the board, and push for bland and inoffensive. Gets the loudest, most damaging voices off their back.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

Even though only one person seemed to notice my idea for another thread off this one, I went ahead and created it anyhow. Please be nice

 

[Incenjucar]

Nuance requires additional page count, and research, and time, all of which require additional money. Far more likely for WotC to just provide less lore across the board, and push for bland and inoffensive. Gets the loudest, most damaging voices off their back.

If they're not good enough to do things well, doing them less is preferable, so I'll take it.