D&D General Old School DND talks if DND is racist.

[Campbell]

It's always pretty much been the case that Hollywood studios have been run by old men trying to make entertainment for young people they do not understand using middle aged actors and actresses.

 

[Mannahnin]

A preview of the first five minutes:

Nick introduces the topic: A Stanford University Professor (Antone Garcia) argued that D&D has racist undertones. He reads the title of the paper, "How Technology and Gaming Shape Youth Learning, Literacy Practices, and Civic Identities." Both fellows laugh about the title, implying it "doesn't sound very fun."

Nick is careful to point out that the paper is a study of D&D fans, not D&D players. The professor heard from fans that the game is racist. Nick asks, "Is the game racist? or are you racist for playing it?"

Without a segue, Tieflings are brought up as a discussion point. Nick asks, "What is a tiefling?" and the other speaker informs him that a tiefling is a human character with an infernal heritage. To that, Nick asks "So is the article implying that the infernal regions (of D&D) are Chicago, Detroit, or anything like that? Like, I don't ever remember anything like that. Like when you're writing the Plane of Hell or the City of Brass or wherever, that it's supposed to look exactly like Detroit."

A few seconds later, he changes the topic without segue again. "Maybe here's the dividing line," Nick says. "Old-school D&D isn't racist, maybe this new-school D&D is racist."

This concludes my preview of the first five minutes.

Another minute and forty in, and the other dude, after talking about No Thank You, Evil having useful therapeutic value for kids, and RPGs being used for PTSD therapy as well as being fun, starts to re-address the article, and opines "if you have time to being research on D&D, you got too much time on your hands". I'm not sure if he even gets the contradiction. :/

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, except for those sections in the intros of the various books that explicitly tell you that in this game you should feel free to change anything you please.
I, a decently intelligent 11/12 year old, read those pages in Basic & 1e and understood perfectly well that I could (for example) change an monsters alignment if I pleased.
I feel like I'm in the minority in having read those pages (or at least understanding them).

Thing is, Basic and 1e made a point of highlighting this "change whatever you like" aspect.

I'm not so sure it's as prominently stated in the more recent editions (3e and forward), in which an underlying design goal seems to be conformity across tables. The organized-play influence, maybe?

 

[Alzrius]

I'm not so sure it's as prominently stated in the more recent editions (3e and forward), in which an underlying design goal seems to be conformity across tables. The organized-play influence, maybe?

I suspect it also has something to do with balance being seen as an issue of parity in the mechanics, creating a perception that changing things will somehow throw the proverbial gears out of whack.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm not so sure it's as prominently stated in the more recent editions (3e and forward), in which an underlying design goal seems to be conformity across tables. The organized-play influence, maybe?

That was a goal in 3e and 4e. 5e specifically moved back in the other direction.

 

[Voadam]

Thing is, Basic and 1e made a point of highlighting this "change whatever you like" aspect.

I'm not so sure it's as prominently stated in the more recent editions (3e and forward), in which an underlying design goal seems to be conformity across tables. The organized-play influence, maybe?

1e was all over the place on this.

The 1e DMG and 1e Dragon articles have a number of points about conformity across tables.

From the DMG preface page 7

Dictums are given for the sake of the game only, for if ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is to survive and grow, it must have some degree of uniformity, a familiarity of method and procedure from campaign to campaign within the whole. ADVANCED D&D is more than a framework around which individual DMs construct their respective milieux, it is above all a set of boundaries for all of the “worlds” devised by referees everywhere.

Later editions have a lot of rules options for variability of rule system across systems. For example 3.5 had Unearthed Arcana, a whole sourcebook on alternate rule systems different from the core ones.

The 5e DMG is full of variable rules options ranging from healing paces to combat mechanics like what grants advantage.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

With regard to this topic, discuss and change according to your values.

however, this whole “old school players are x” or “OSR” players are “y” stuff is absurd.

so let’s say there is a higher percentage of that population that behaves a certain way, is it good to ascribe that characteristic to that population?

this is so divisive and stupid. It is stereotyping that hurts the game. The best argument for alienating the older base is always “the new players are younger.” So why did D&D next bother with everyone? And if your whole thing is screw older players we have enough new ones, I suspect the actual purchasing power skews older. I own darn near everything including tons of minis. If it’s only purchasing power that matters I guess I should get 3 votes?

there is prejudice and racism in the human population, there is racism and prejudice in the D&D population. What’s your point? Stamp it out if you encounter it but get out with the broad generalizations.

there is a rather sickening trend of demonizing parts of the player base that goes way back and we don’t have to keep feeding the beast.

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh sure, I was just quoting Sturgeon's Law. And maybe casting a little shade at the notion Hollywood is somehow more commercial now than it was then.

It was commercial but as late as the 80s you had more variety in genres and you had multiple relatively low budget hits.

 

[Zardnaar]

With regard to this topic, discuss and change according to your values.

however, this whole “old school players are x” or “OSR” players are “y” stuff is absurd.

so let’s say there is a higher percentage of that population that behaves a certain way, is it good to ascribe that characteristic to that population?

this is so divisive and stupid. It is stereotyping that hurts the game. The best argument for alienating the older base is always “the new players are younger.” So why did D&D next bother with everyone? And if your whole thing is screw older players we have enough new ones, I suspect the actual purchasing power skews older. I own darn near everything including tons of minis. If it’s only purchasing power that matters I guess I should get 3 votes?

there is prejudice and racism in the human population, there is racism and prejudice in the D&D population. What’s your point? Stamp it out if you encounter it but get out with the broad generalizations.

there is a rather sickening trend of demonizing parts of the player base that goes way back and we don’t have to keep feeding the beast.

I suspect the whales buy way more stuff.

Personally I think I own more 5E product as my group and another one put togather. 30 odd books and a pile of PDFs.

I don't think the whales matter as much as say 2008 though.

 

[Eltab]

That sentiment seems familiar somehow...

I'm not quite old enough to remember one popular cultural catch-phrase - "You can't trust anyone over 30" - in real time. That sentiment is just as unhelpful today as it was then.