D&D 5E (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Guest 85555]

Factually false. I've grown up in this era. I can tell you there is a big difference between dial-up and small chat rooms and modern twitter. It isn't even a competition



Maybe people have just gotten sick of the same things, all the time? I mean, none of the things we are talking about are difficult to actually do, we've seen other companies and groups do them, but we get accused of ruining everything because we can't just ignore the flaws anymore.

Again that was an error but the point I was trying to make was there has been a transition from the earlier days of the internet, where there was a lot more of a positive exchange to what we have now, which is frequently very hostile, cruel and accusatory. And that bleeds into these discussions unfortunately.

Sure people may be sick of things they keep seeing in media and I think it's fine for people to criticize. But I think we've gone into overdrive where that is the primary focus, and it has become such a primary focus, we are losing sight of other things, and we are always seeing it, even when a lot of people think it isn't there.

I don't think you have demonstrated these are flaws. Just because I a master painter can paint a masterpiece without the color red, that doesn't mean paintings with red in them are flawed. And there may be very good reasons to use red. Yes you don't need individual elements to make compelling worlds but the more real world elements a setting lacks, I think the less compelling it can be.

And they are flaws. We've already demonstrated, you don't NEED racism to make good stories. You don't NEED racism to make compelling worlds. Just like you don't need sexism, and you don't need ageism. We can make core books, our default handed to children, not simply assume the world must be a terrible place.

In terms of the world being a terrible place. This is an adventure game. You need conflict. Many campaigns will need evil in order for them to thrive (or at least antagonists). A lot of this stuff is just an easy way to make antagonistic elements in a setting. Again it isn't required to be good.

 

[Faolyn]

Who -- mysteriously -- are matriarchal alongside the drow.

There aren't that many matriarchal/female dominated races in D&D, but I recall that in 2e at least, nearly every one that was was also evil. I think the only exception was the swanmays. All the good races were either patriarchal or egalitarian.

 

[Guest 85555]

Right, so it is all the slippery slope fallacy. No one is intending harm, no one is advocating for harm, no one is planning harm.... but inevitably you will do harm, because these ideas will not stop here, but barrel on forward until great harm is done.

And, I hate to remind you, but it is called a fallacy for a reason.

It isn't always a fallacy because slippery slopes happen. History is riddled with them. And I would say in this particular issue, we've seen it play out from the early days of "Its okay to like problematic things" to the present moment where its so important to avoid problematic things teams of sensitivity readers get hired to vet products. I would argue that this has been a slippery slope. And I think we can discern more ahead if we aren't careful.

 

[Vaalingrade]

There aren't that many matriarchal/female dominated races in D&D, but I recall that in 2e at least, nearly every one that was was also evil. I think the only exception was the swanmays. All the good races were either patriarchal or egalitarian.

There's the Abiel, but that's because they're bees.

How is it that I've found reason to talk about them like three times in a month after not thinking about them for over a decade?

 

[Guest 85555]

So why do you continuously bring up the threat to the greater culture? It would be like having a meeting to discuss changing the menu at a restaurant, and someone continuously bringing up how fusion cuisine is destroying cultural identity. Like... does that even apply? Are we really going to base our decision on whether or not to have a shrimp taco on the menu on the idea that the French identity is under assault by the blending of cultural foods? There is sort of a connecting line, but the two ideas are so far apart that continuously tugging on that line seems like intentionally trying to bridge that distance.

If anything I am arguing for fusion of cultural ideas, not against fusion. So I am not seeing the connection here to what I said or have been saying

 

[Justice and Rule]

It isn't always a fallacy because slippery slopes happen. History is riddled with them. And I would say in this particular issue, we've seen it play out from the early days of "Its okay to like problematic things" to the present moment where its so important to avoid problematic things teams of sensitivity readers get hired to vet products. I would argue that this has been a slippery slope. And I think we can discern more ahead if we aren't careful.

What is the slippery slope? What is the cost lowering? The slippery slope works when we have a bad behavior that we end up encouraging more of: the loosening of privacy protections driving the loss of more protections follows well. What is being lost here? Do we have actual examples? What is the end-game of the slippery slope? The vagueness of all this makes it an example of the fallacy.

 

[Guest 85555]

Which is why many of them have day jobs. But, you seemed to have missed my point. Yes, for many of them each book is on a razor's edge... so they think about what the audience wants and worry about making a sub-par product. That's normal. And if part of quality control is now "is this racist" well, I'd much prefer that over to no one caring whether or not a product is racist. Seems we spent an awful long time as a society being okay with dehumanizing others, and I'm glad we are starting to say "hey, maybe we shouldn't be okay with that."

And my issue is the bar has just been lowered too far on this front in my opinion. If we were talking about people making racist RPGs, sure that is fair. But we are talking about whether half elves are okay, whether going into dungeons and killing goblins is okay (and some people reading that as a colonialist trope and/or as a racist one). We are also doing a lot of mistaking content for the message (i.e. the game has racial bigotry between elves and dwarves, therefore it is racist or unwelcoming).

 

[Guest 85555]

What is the slippery slope? What is the cost lowering? The slippery slope works when we have a bad behavior that we end up encouraging more of: the loosening of privacy protections driving the loss of more protections follows well. What is being lost here? Do we have actual examples? What is the end-game of the slippery slope? The vagueness of all this makes it an example of the fallacy.

I just pointed to it pretty clearly. This started with a raised awareness of problematic tropes but it is now at a point where tropes are effectively being policed by people on twitter and social media (and it is impacting creators lives because a lot of times an innocent use of something gets recast in a different light and they find themselves defending against accusations of racism). But even if we just focus on this discussion: we are losing our ability to have functional half elves and half orcs. We are losing our ability to have evil humanoid threats in the game as antagonists. We are losing our ability to have games where people write about soothing outside their own culture. We are losing the ability to handle complex and weighty topics like slavery and racism. Again, you can say I've provided no evidence. You can say this stuff isn't happening or if it is it isn't a big deal. But I think most gamers if you asked them would say yes something has been very different in the past five years, and while it might be extremely well intentioned, it feels like it has having a chilling effect on our ability to not just publish games in ways that are gameable and fun, but to even play them (because that can be a risk too now in this day and age)

 

[Guest 85555]

Right. And other than "but my poor author's creative vision!" is there anything actually wrong with that? Is there anything wrong with saying "You know, this habit we have of depicting young women as beautiful, passive prizes to be won is causing issues with young men thinking women are passive prizes to be won.... maybe we should do better?"

I mean, you hit the nail on the head "take greater care". Not cleanse and purify, not perfection. Just take greater care, think through our tropes and assumptions to see if they are still serving a purpose we want to be served. That's.... good. It is critical thinking.

To be clear here, I am not against Shrek or against people commenting on a trope. That has been going on for decades and it was always something you could hear, weigh and make a decision about (and maybe you agreed, maybe you didn't but people went on with their lives). It isn't like that now. My point is this is reaching an intensity and becoming such a priority that it is the focus. And that's where I think it is becoming a problem. And that is further excacerbated by how this has intersected with social media and attempts to cancel people to have large numbers of posters online go after a publisher for putting something out, etc. Now in fairness, I think this is winding down. I could be wrong, but it seems people are tiring of this approach (and actually one of my worries is an overcorrection).

I do think this does at times become like a cultural purification or cleansing. And it definitely has a puritanical streak I would say. Because we are just deciding these tropes are bad and people shouldn't use them. To me that is throwing out the baby with the bath water. Again here I am talking generally about the movement not individuals posting here

 

[Guest 85555]

No. I don't think that "anyone" who has participated in the hobby has found criticism to have become more nefarious and cruel, compared to lying on the national news about a suicidal kid to blame a game that had nothing to do with his disappearance. Or making a full length movie, based on a novel, about the evils of gaming.

When I was in 5th grade, we had a computer project to make a slideshow. I decided to make one on my favorite game. I put Dungeons and Dragons into google. First result was Jack Chick's Dark Dungeon, featuring a cult, book burnings, and suicide. So, if I compare "anyone who likes this game is being led by dark forces to kill themselves and we must destroy this evil!" to "Hey. is this racist? This looks kind of racist to me." No, I don't think it has become crueler and more nefarious.

I remember those days too. I lived in a very religious area of the country for five years when that was happening and D&D wasn't allowed. Heavy metal wasn't allowed. Even Willow of all things wasn't allowed. I am not saying things haven't been worse coming at gamers from the outside, but this is the worst internal movement of criticism I have seen in a long time within the hobby. And I think the cruelty is especially visible in places like twitter where most of the cancelations tended to happen. I am all for people being able to critique an idea. That is why I am trying to walk a fine line and make sure I am criticizing your ideas but not you personally (and if I veer into that definitely feel free to remind me of this statement). What I have a problem with is how this bleeds into going after people, and attacking them personally. If people just said "I don't like this game because it has this trope" and there was enough of an open minded space for people who did like the game to give their view on the trope, and it didn't become personal between the two sides, and it didn't become personal against the creator, then I wouldn't really have an issue with what is going on. It is the crescendo this has reached that alarms me.