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New Statblocks for D&D's Kobolds
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<blockquote data-quote="kenmarable" data-source="post: 8019009" data-attributes="member: 40359"><p>Even setting aside the parallels to horrible real world views of race, that’s just lazy writing. Whether it is early D&D copying Tolkien or it’s Star Trek with “Klingons are the warrior race, Vulcans are the logic race, and humans are the... uh... varied race” or the countless other times in Fantasy & SciFi where other races are defined as one trick ponies and humans are just “varied”, it is cliche, massively overdone, and honestly booooooring. (yawn) The races in Eberron and Wildemount, for example, are actually interesting without being either monolithic “all one thing” races or just “humans that look different.”</p><p></p><p>If someone wants to treat the races that way in their own games, fine, they can. There’s decade after decade of D&D lore to support it and nearly a century of fiction as well! But I’d expect professional writers 46 years into the game to be more creative than just reheating ideas Tolkien wrote back in 1937. Anyone could do that! </p><p></p><p>Thankfully, the current D&D writers at WotC as well as various freelance/independent writers in the industry are extremely talented. If I’m paying good money for a book, I expect them to know there are entire fascinating worlds of difference between fantasy races “focused on one thing and one thing only” vs “making everything the same.” My basement is filled with boxes of book after book of those same repurposed ideas, and I know in 2020 that writers can do so much better.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="kenmarable, post: 8019009, member: 40359"] Even setting aside the parallels to horrible real world views of race, that’s just lazy writing. Whether it is early D&D copying Tolkien or it’s Star Trek with “Klingons are the warrior race, Vulcans are the logic race, and humans are the... uh... varied race” or the countless other times in Fantasy & SciFi where other races are defined as one trick ponies and humans are just “varied”, it is cliche, massively overdone, and honestly booooooring. (yawn) The races in Eberron and Wildemount, for example, are actually interesting without being either monolithic “all one thing” races or just “humans that look different.” If someone wants to treat the races that way in their own games, fine, they can. There’s decade after decade of D&D lore to support it and nearly a century of fiction as well! But I’d expect professional writers 46 years into the game to be more creative than just reheating ideas Tolkien wrote back in 1937. Anyone could do that! Thankfully, the current D&D writers at WotC as well as various freelance/independent writers in the industry are extremely talented. If I’m paying good money for a book, I expect them to know there are entire fascinating worlds of difference between fantasy races “focused on one thing and one thing only” vs “making everything the same.” My basement is filled with boxes of book after book of those same repurposed ideas, and I know in 2020 that writers can do so much better. [/QUOTE]
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