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

[Chaosmancer]

No, of course they considered their audience. Writers should consider their audience. But often we aren't even talking about the writer's audience.

What I want, is if Tolkien wants to write book the Catholic Church approves of, that is a socially viable thing to create, and if he wants to write a book the Catholic Church disapproves of, that is also socially viable. I would argue getting into territory that stirs controversy, even if it is untended is less socially viable these days (to be clear in gaming today than gaming say ten or twenty years ago)

If people have a loud enough voice to force an author to change their vision, then they were likely part of the authors audience. Because most people who aren't in that audience, don't even know they exist.

But, let's see. is it true that it is less viable to make games that tackle social controversies in these last ten years, so 2013 to today.

Games like "Papers, please" that deal with immigration and war? MAybe things like capitalism and corporations having too much power, like in Cyber-Punk? GTA San Andreas tackles many social issues as well, while not exactly being PG.

And that is just video games, I'm sure I could find a bunch of RPGs too.

Though, I will admit. There were a lot of games in my search which did get censured. For example a game that depicted sexual assault against an IRL idol group, or one labeled as a dark power fantasy where a serial killer in a zombie apocalypse attacks and kills people, while also sexually assaulting women.

I am fine with negative opinions. I actually like gettin negative opinions because they are often more constructive. And if I get a negative opinion I disagree with, even one that says "I think you using this trope is bad for humanity!" I am always happy to tell the person that I appreciate their feedback and while I disagree I am glad they shared their opinion with me. This isn't an issue I have at all. I have an issue with the personal attacks that tend to arise out of this (and I have personal experience with those, which I don't want to get into here, but I can assure you they happen). And it is because on platforms like twitter, on social media and even in forums when issues like this get raised as the point of contention, all that matters is optics. You can be 100% right, or 100% saying something good and it won't matter because all that matters is how it plays out in the first few tweets. And the level of cruelty you see people, who are claiming they are empathetic and trying to make the hobby welcoming, indulge in cruelty is real, and it has a devastating psychological effect. It also has an effect on one's livelihood that is very real.

I am not accusing you of doing that, but I am saying this stuff happens around these issues for sure. And I am not saying there aren't other terrible things also going on. Nor am I saying everyone taking my position is perfect. There is a lot of division and hostility in general in the gaming community right now, and I would really love if we could find a way out of it and get back to a more live and let live approach to this stuff

But "live and let live" is a dangerous choice when dealing with some of these issues. I just listed two above that I think warrant a strong reaction of "that's not okay". And if your worry is that that sort of reaction will prevent people from including sexual assault in their products... man, wouldn't that be nice to have less games that glorify that? I'd like that to be approaching zero, because getting rid of that content is the point.

And yes, sometimes the optics go badly. And that sucks. Sometimes good things and good messages don't get out there. But I don't think the response to that should be to make it a free-for-all.

Should people take care not to just take things they hear at face value? Absolutely. We should make sure we are critiquing things accurately, not in that "did the author intend this to be" way but in a "I need to make sure I know what the product actually is, not just what someone else said it is"way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why are you ignoring the fact that I said it was fine? You asked, I answered. Again, not really a problem if you include half-orcs with orcs. My issue is the fact that half-blooded races are ALWAYS subjected to racism and bigotry, are ALWAYS misfits and so on. Take out the whole "Well, you're not really a real person unless you have pure blood" from the game and I'm pretty much happy with whatever you put in the books?

I didn't ignore it; I liked your post. It was a legitimate question.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Again, you're completely ignoring context though.

Let's take a look at REAL examples. One of the best regarded D&D modules of all time are the A 1-4 Against the Slave Lords series. These are VERY highly ranked. Among the top ten modules of all time.

Now, there are something like 40 slaves in A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity. Not a single one has a name, race or gender. Not one. They are listed as "slave" only. You get more information about the treasure that you can find than you get about the slaves. While none of the NPC's in the modules are named, they are all described, given classes (often) and race.

THAT'S how slavery is dealt with in D&D. The slaves are faceless, formless blobs with zero identity or detail.

That can and should certainly be done better, I agree. Never actually read that module. But it doesn't mean that the adventure is terrible (the popularity speaks against that), it means that there are places it could definitely be improved. If they provided more and equal detail to the NPCs, both slaves and otherwise, would that make a difference to you?

 

[Chaosmancer]

The problem is not that I never got around to utilising it, it is that you are proposing we replace it with less than what we currently have. And you are determined to remove a story tool because somehow it is abhorrent in D&D but that story tool is acceptable in other forms of media and entertainment.

How is replacing it with a complex society less than what we have? Are you saying that those minor blurbs that aren't supposed to be the final versions are less than the weight of decades of lore? No duh, that would be kind of obvious. Well, it would be obvious to anyone who had read the old lore, for someone who had never read it before this week, then it might not be so obvious.

And, again, movies and games are different. I don't really understand how this is so difficult. When you watch a movie, you don't make decisions about what happens on screen, you don't make decisions on what the emotions at play here are. In DnD, you do. DnD does not have a passive obersver, so we have to treat the content differently.

The only conflict in the world is not racism and to be factually correct, I also included personal conflict and script change.
Within the current orc/half-orc racial write-up the conflict is naked there, waiting to be used and it is inherent.
The other conflicts you speak of are besides the inherent nature. Everyone experiences greed, natural disasters, tyrannical leaders, conflict over resources...etc.
How is the orc anyway different to a human, dwarf, elf, goblin...with the things you mentioned for conflict?
Where is the diversity?

Most of the rest of your post I have not included as my above paragraph covers it.

So, to make sure I understand you correctly. You want to treat orcs/half-orcs differently than the other races, showcasing conflict within the person of the orc/half-orc and within the society of the orc/half-orc... in the name of diversity?

I very rarely quote the Princess Bride, but I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Because, supposedly in the name of diversity, you want to have elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, humans and dragonborn all presented without these elements and orcs/half-orcs presented with them. Treating one group different than all the others isn't diversity, it is something else. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out what it is.

Point to me the problematic elements in the other races and I will take a look. Everything can always be improved upon, I'm just not in favour of replacing things with less.

You are inverting what I said. There ARE no issues like what we see with the orcs and half-orcs in the other races. That's why your insistence that these "diverse" elements for the half-orcs and orcs must be included is a double standard, because it certainly isn't needed for the other groups.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Imagine being focused on whether your neighbor's ears are pointy enough when your mayor is a dragon and an otyugh greets you each morning in your out house.

Not every setting is as fantastic as the one you just sketched out. Most aren't, in fact. The one from the new movie might be.

 

[ChameleonX]

And, taken in isolation you’d probably be right.

Except for the fact that the violence and increativity traits are described using identical language as in word for word quotations very nearly- to the way minorities, name black particularly, were described in unbelievablely racist writings from the early twentieth century.

That’s the entire problem with this conversation. Everything gets stripped of context and taken in isolation. Calling a group tribal is fine. There’s nothing wrong with using tribal to describe a group.

Using tribal to exclusively describe evil, brutish, stupid, uncreative groups with little or no culture or redeeming qualities IS the problem.

This conversation would actually be productive if people would stop being so myopically reductive.

Yeah, but you don't have to draw that connection. Orcs can just be Orcs. Drow can just be Drow. There's no reason to link them to real world minorities unless you're looking for an excuse to be offended about something.

To be clear, I don't have any problem with adding more nuance to the lore and making it more explicit that the classic depiction of these races are just from the biased viewpoint of humans, dwarves, elves, etc and that the reality is much more complicated and subjective.

I just don't like the idea of effectively removing "half" races from the game just to satisfy some "woke" agenda, when they have their own mechanical and thematic niches in the game that aren't filled by just "you're a human with green skin and tusks."

 

[Xamnam]

There's no reason to link them to real world minorities unless you're looking for an excuse to be offended about something.

Why, when people, in this very thread even, actively and explicitly give their reasons for being bothered by these depictions, do you not believe what they are saying?

It's one thing to not find their arguments persuasive. It's quite another to claim that they are lying or don't actually think what they say they do.

People do see a connection. Why is the idea that they're instead malicious actors looking to tear something down on made up premises more plausible?

I just find this statement very ungenerous to many posters here.

 

[Guest 85555]

If people have a loud enough voice to force an author to change their vision, then they were likely part of the authors audience. Because most people who aren't in that audience, don't even know they exist.

But, let's see. is it true that it is less viable to make games that tackle social controversies in these last ten years, so 2013 to today.

Games like "Papers, please" that deal with immigration and war? MAybe things like capitalism and corporations having too much power, like in Cyber-Punk? GTA San Andreas tackles many social issues as well, while not exactly being PG.

And that is just video games, I'm sure I could find a bunch of RPGs too.

Though, I will admit. There were a lot of games in my search which did get censured. For example a game that depicted sexual assault against an IRL idol group, or one labeled as a dark power fantasy where a serial killer in a zombie apocalypse attacks and kills people, while also sexually assaulting women.

I don't play video games so I don't really have much I can say. The last controversial game I recall was grand theft auto, and frankly when I see a lot of video games, I personally find them distasteful and juvenile. But I also would just do the same I do with films I find distasteful and either not watch them/play them, or learn more to see if they are as bad as I have been hearing and then make a decision. But again I don't play video games so I really can't weigh in more than that on video game culture. You can also describe some of the best films ever made as horrible if you isolate the bad elements (and many people still find them terrible in context: Dirty Harry, A Clockwork Orange, Taxi Driver, etc). I am selecting from the 70s but this premise applies to most recent decades. I don't think you would have made movies better by saying Taxi Driver, or A Clockwork Orange don't need those elements. And just so my argument doesn't appear cartoonish, I understand in both cases the directors were still weighing audience response and an internal moral compass (Kubrick changed a scene from the book that I think was too far for a lot of people, and I think he made the right call). Maybe video games aren't striving for this level of meaning, I don't know. Again I can't weigh in, but I'd rather err on the side of allowing things to exist and just not engaging them if I find them awful. And if I find them truly awful I think it is entirely fair to make arguments for why. My line isn't in the criticism itself, its in the assertion that its so bad other people shouldn't be able to make that determination for themselves by watching it and in how these things often become massive forces on social media where people are then afraid to even stand up for something they consider a misunderstood work of art, because you can get labeled whatever the movie is getting labeled and it will have real social consequences for you.

But "live and let live" is a dangerous choice when dealing with some of these issues. I just listed two above that I think warrant a strong reaction of "that's not okay". And if your worry is that that sort of reaction will prevent people from including sexual assault in their products... man, wouldn't that be nice to have less games that glorify that? I'd like that to be approaching zero, because getting rid of that content is the point.

I am not in the business of saying what art should and shouldn't be using. Again I don't understand video games so I can't comment very well on that. But take Scarface. A lot of people feel that glorifies violence. Arguably it does. At the very least it uses a kind of glamor to to paint the canvas with carnage and bloodshed. I am 100% okay with that, and think it is a beautiful movie, the same way I think Lady Snowblood is beautiful or One Armed Swordsman is beautiful. Violence can be cathartic in media and it can serve a higher artistic aim. And I say all that as someone who isn't a fan of real world violence and lived for many years in a neighborhood where things like gunshots were more routine than they ought to be (and my feeling is that horrible stuff exists in the world so it should exist in art too---and you can even find meaning in to). Look, Alice Cooper is a born again Christian. There is a lot of stuff he does in his art that would seem to contradict his beliefs (and just so we are 100% clear, I am not a born again Christian and don't subscribe to an evangelist point of view at all). I agree with him when I've seen him in interviews where he gets asked, sometimes by people who are Christian and troubled that he is thinking of doing something like playing King Herod in Jesus Christ Superstar or getting beheaded on stage, that its art and it is different from his personal set of beliefs. In the case of JCS it is particularly striking because that seems to actually go against some of what he actually believes but he is still okay performing in it). An artist who presents scenes of violence an bloodshed and other horrible things isn't endorsing those things (there may be some who do, but in most cases they are simply using them as subject matter).

And yes, sometimes the optics go badly. And that sucks. Sometimes good things and good messages don't get out there. But I don't think the response to that should be to make it a free-for-all.

I am very wary of any movement where we say "this needs to stop happening in art". I get that there will be terrible depictions of things I may disagree with. But I think free expression is too important and while it may start innocently for a good reason, it always seems to inevitably get turned upon the powerless by the powerful once that lever enters into things. Today you might not be showing acts of racial violence between orcs, tomorrow it might be you aren't able to show LBGTQ relationships. Obviously there are going to be some lines, but we really need to be cautious here in my option and I think the best approach is to take things individually and on a viewer by viewer level (i.e. if you don't like a book, simply don't buy it).

But that isn't what we are talking about exactly. We are focused on WOTC and orcs, and here no one is saying the game needs to be like those video games you described. They are talking about mild elements from the real world to make the game have a greater sense of danger, reality, etc. Even when they are serious, they are often done in a fade to black or off camera approach.

Should people take care not to just take things they hear at face value? Absolutely. We should make sure we are critiquing things accurately, not in that "did the author intend this to be" way but in a "I need to make sure I know what the product actually is, not just what someone else said it is"way.

This I agree with. If you are going to critique something at least read the thing for yourself and do so in good faith before blasting it. It is very easy to go into hyper critical mode and I've seen a lot of well intentioned criticisms of RPG products take away the opposite of the intended meaning because they were so focused on a particular critical angle.

 

[AnotherGuy]

How is replacing it with a complex society less than what we have?

Because we already have playable races with a complex society. All you want to do is add orcs into that mix to become just another skin. Right now, they're unique.

Are you saying that those minor blurbs that aren't supposed to be the final versions are less than the weight of decades of lore? No duh, that would be kind of obvious. Well, it would be obvious to anyone who had read the old lore, for someone who had never read it before this week, then it might not be so obvious.

Well those are the ones you presented to me.

And, again, movies and games are different. I don't really understand how this is so difficult. When you watch a movie, you don't make decisions about what happens on screen, you don't make decisions on what the emotions at play here are. In DnD, you do. DnD does not have a passive obersver, so we have to treat the content differently.

Yeah, we are never going to get past this point as I find this reasoning hogwash.
There are games from Final Fantasy books to PC Games that deal with racism and we are active participants in those yet somehow we become emotionally brittle when we pick up a pair of die. It is so much easier being passive, unable to do anything about the injustice, unable to be a hero, unable to make your voice known.

So, to make sure I understand you correctly. You want to treat orcs/half-orcs differently than the other races, showcasing conflict within the person of the orc/half-orc and within the society of the orc/half-orc... in the name of diversity?

I provided you a list of examples of the conflicts that exist for a number of races.
So yes, I think each having their own unique struggles provides hopefully a different experience of play at the table. Mechanical effects or Traits, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws would assist that - so that they are not all same-y, but some rather loud voices are not fans of that.

You are inverting what I said. There ARE no issues like what we see with the orcs and half-orcs in the other races.

Yes, because orcs moved from being antagonists to playable races, so the weight of their racial history came with. I do not want anymore skins.

That's why your insistence that these "diverse" elements for the half-orcs and orcs must be included is a double standard, because it certainly isn't needed for the other groups.

Tieflings have the general distrust by others, Dragonborn are looked as strangely alien.
As we move more and more of the Monster Manual into the PHB we will have more of these issues since many of them have slavery, cannibalism, racism in their history. Why? Because they were originally monsters. As you bring more and more of them across you are going to be stripping them of any uniqueness and making them skins with....complex societies.

Personally, I think there should be a humanoids book with a whole range of ideas (like the ones I posted) and script swaps. That would be far more useful than sanitsing the PHB.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah, but you don't have to draw that connection. Orcs can just be Orcs. Drow can just be Drow. There's no reason to link them to real world minorities unless you're looking for an excuse to be offended about something.

They literally used orcs to make racist jokes about indigenous peoples and Asians.