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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dire Bare" data-source="post: 8369481" data-attributes="member: 18182">And yet . . . it's always been this way my dude. With D&D, with Star Wars, with Star Trek . . . with every major, long-running franchise. The recent D&D announcement on their policy towards canon isn't really a new thing, they've always operated this way.I already brought up a great example in this thread. The idea that drow were once light-skinned elves (or later, dark brown skinned elves, as if that makes it better) that were cursed with ebony skin and driven underground by God (Corellon, specifically) . . . . and then redeemed by Christ's sacrifice (Eilistraee, in this case) and have their original, lighter-skin tones restored . . . . hoo-boy! That is "canon" and it is incredibly racist. Should we hold on to that, because some D&D writers & designers in the past didn't realize the racist implications of this story?The drow have long been problematic for multiple reasons, the above included. Should we ignore that, shrug "it's just fantasy" and move on with that systemic racist crap in our games? Thankfully, the stewards of D&D don't feel that way, and haven't for quite some time. The story of how the drow were cursed with dark skin (and their restoration) has been quietly shelved. Drow are no longer described as having jet black skin, but retconned into having a range of skin tones from light gray to jet black, with hints of purple. All of this done quite some time ago, quietly. And for close to 40 books now, Salvatore has been working to give the Menzoberranzan drow culture more nuance, portraying the drow not as inherently evil, but just as people caught up in a highly dysfunctional and oppressive society. Although, he's certainly kicked it up a notch in the last four books or so. ALL of this breaks earlier canon on the drow.And now WotC is making an additive change to the drow lore, by adding two more, non-evil, drow cultures, the aevendrow and the lorendrow. Some of us like the changes, some of us don't . . . regardless of how we feel about the sacredness of canon. And that's okay.Plenty of D&D writers and designers of the past have put in some BAD elements into the D&D canon (because they're human and sometimes humans make bad calls) . . . sometimes racist, sometimes misogynist, sometimes contradictory to existing lore, sometimes just plain stupid . . . . are we stuck with all of that because canon? Including the unintentionally contradictory elements? That's just, forgive me, stupid. Adjusting and tweaking as necessary, to remove problematic and just plain bad elements of D&D lore is the smart call, it's the way WotC has always treated the property, they're just being more straightforward about it now . . . . likely because there ARE some bigger changes coming up in the near future . . . .Ugh.</blockquote>

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