D&D (2024) (+) New Edition Changes for Inclusivity (discuss possibilities)

[Thirteenspades]

Why don’t we forget all the angst and concentrate on real world harm and how we can avoid encouraging it or making people relive it in their published games?

But first, think: work to stop a couple angry parents who will be angry for a week (by changing the rules that effect everyone) or long-term actual issues that would actually effect people, and more than just the fact that they say they're effected.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Why don’t we forget all the angst and concentrate on real world harm and how we can avoid encouraging it or making people relive it in their published games?

You do know this is a game about killing things are taking their stuff, right? The entire point of D&D is to inflict harm and benefit from it financially.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

A lot of stuff, TSR expected that the DM assumed. That's why it was so rules-light.

I mean, how does the fact that the rules were more vague back them disprove that alignment is not necessary to d&d?

 

[Thirteenspades]

You do know this is a game about killing things are taking their stuff, right? The entire point is to inflict harm and benefit from it financially.

Depends on the campaign.
And philosophy.
Is killing Graz'zt (who wants to rape and kill everything) not for the greater good?

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Depends on the campaign.
And philosophy.
Is killing Graz'zt (who wants to rape and kill everything) not for the greater good?

Again: Humor -> window -> defenestration.

 

[Cadence]

That actually has been disproven, with the discovery of fossils in IIRC 2017 of horses from much later than that, as well as sightings of Natives with horse in the Carolinas in numbers before horses could possibly have gotten to there from escaped or lost Spanish horses, which would have had required the horses to escape or be lost, travel from what is now Mexico City, and repopulate, in 2 years or less.

In other words, the entire narrative that Europeans reintroduced natives to horses has always been bunk “science” based on Western biases.

Edit: a quick google helped me find a good article with links to sources. I’ll do the work for you this time, because I enjoy reading about it anyway.

Yes world, there were horses in Native culture before the settlers came

Yvette Running Horse Collin’s recent dissertation may have rewritten every natural history book on the shelf. A Lakota/Nakota/Cheyenne scholar, Collin worked

indiancountrytoday.com

Are there any peer reviewed articles looking at those claims? I'm only on my phone and didn't turn any up. And I'd love to see the DNA tests on the horses for example (I'd love to contribute to a patreon/GoFundMe if they haven't been done yet because solid evidence to overturn the long time consensus would be really cool.) Anyway, a single dissertation by itself doesn't generally feel like it is taken as sufficient evidence to overturn much of anything. (See the problems psychology has had with even peer reviewed papers that weren't replicated or revisited). Given the excitement I know from some anthropologists I know who study sites that push dates back, and how those who do phylogenetics on animals would probably love to be able to take claim for establishing evidence for her claim, it feels like any evidence of that type would get a lot of people anxious to get work published on it so they could get tenured or a good annual review.

One post I pulled up on it brought up some questions on selective use of sourcing and claims of reliability of oral tradition that felt a little difficult to credit. (It isn't my area though, and my experience is limited to reading about it in light of Norse myths and some things about the Bible). In any case, if the scientists with a vested interest in horses dying off and being reintroduced have possible biases, it feels like someone attempting to back up their cultures traditions does too. And that waiting for more replication, review, and parallel evidence before being firmly declarative might be a thing.

(And seriously, I'll have to look more into the DNA testing of her horses and if they're looking into or opposed to it, and how they're seeking funds if so).

 

[Thirteenspades]

I mean, how does the fact that the rules were more vague back them disprove that alignment is not necessary to d&d?

Hmm, this is meaty. Someone help me out here.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

Folks, the absurd and slippery slope arguments are not constructive, and not in the spirit of a (+) thread. It is a passive-aggressive negation, rather than a positive addition.

So, please, if you're not interested in actually working with people to improve inclusivity, it is time to disengage from the thread. If, in your heart of hearts, you feel attempts to improve inclusivity are wrong headed, please go find some other discussion.

Thank you.

 

[TheSword]

You do know this is a game about killing things are taking their stuff, right? The entire point of D&D is to inflict harm and benefit from it financially.

Nope, the point of d&d is to have fun.

Lets try and do that in a way that doesn’t remind disadvantaged minorities of the racism they experience in the real world.

Let’s not worry about whether Pelor is loosely based on an offshoot of the Sumerian god Cthopra and therefore offensive to the people of Nasiriyah, is what I’m saying.

 

[Cadence]

But when you take out alignment, that also removes the built-in capacity for storytelling. How can a bugbear be Lawful Good if it chaotically, evily enjoys roasting the heads of its enemies? Ahh, more time spent trying to make up a history for Bob the nice-guy Bugbear.

Is it against the law where they're at to eat their enemies? Is it lawful in a sense to confirm to one's true nature? Is it evil if the meal would have died and not gotten back to it's kin for a funeral anyway, it doesn't stop them from achieving the right place in the afterlife, and it saves a bit more of the local wildlife and livestock?

(Asking for one of my PCs who was a Bugbear and would with hold from eating humanoid where it was illegal or if he found through discussion that it would disturb his allies).