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

[Don Durito]

You listen to those who say it is, consider their perspective as empathetically as possible, and consider the impact that changing the behavior in question will have on you, on them, and on those who don’t consider it a problem. I find that more often than not, a thing that has little to no impact on my life and the lives of those who don’t care about the subject can have a huge impact on the lives of those who do. Not always, but often.

Well yes of course you do, but that's orthogonal, and not at all relevant to what I said which was merely responding to lazy appeals to authority.

If you're friend says X is offensive to them you listen to their reasons and consider them. You should of course listen emphathetically but you are not 100% bound to consider they are right. You don't entirely abandon your own reason.

And if a third party asks why X is offensive, you need to explain your friends reasons, not say "My friend is Asian and he says it's offensive so...".

If nothing else, weak appeals to authority are counterproductive.

 

[Don Durito]

Of course Asians (or any group) aren't a hivemind. That's a disingenuous phrasing/standard. Surely you are well aware that what we're talking about is that if a large group of Asians are telling us of issues in Oriental Adventures, then it probably has merit, even if that one Asian person over there isn't offended. You're basically arguing that there is no issue with the Washington Redskins team name because there have been a few Native Americans weren't offended by it, despite a huge group of them being offended.

What large group? How can there possibly be a large group of people offended by a product that has been out of print for decades and is hardly ever used. This is absurd on the face of things.

No offense, but that's a lazy cop out to avoid accountability and refuse to be better as a group. Every progressive movement has been made from having this conversation, which proves that "ultimately there is nowhere to go but argument" is false. Why? Because most people can acknowledge when things are issues and agree to try to address them. Not just to continue to wave them under the rug and ignore them. Oh, there are people that do do that. The same kind of people who argued that women shouldn't be able to vote. Or that schools should still be segregated. Keep things the way they are, because people offended are just looking to be offended.

I don't know what you're on about here. Civil rights progress absolutely requires winning the public argument.

I'm not arguing there is nothing problematic in D&D. I'm arguing that you need to actually make the effort of putting forward arguments and reasoning.

 

[Zardnaar]

I remember I had the Fighting Fantasy Titan world book long before I got into D&D.

That was my first experience with Dark Elves. Looking at the illustrations now it's obviously that they're shaded in such as to indicate dark skin. But I don't recall it being mentioned in the text, and I never realised. It never occured to me. I always imagined they had really pale skin because they lived deep underground (after all that would make sense wouldn't it)

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If I invented drow these days I would make them ultra pale or albinos.
The sun would likely be poisonous to them as well not just make them blind or whatever.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well yes of course you do, but that's orthogonal, and not at all relevant to what I said which was merely responding to lazy appeals to authority.

If you're friend says X is offensive to them you listen to their reasons and consider them. You should of course listen emphathetically but you are not 100% bound to consider they are right. You don't entirely abandon your own reason.

Right, but if it is of minor inconvenience to you to not do the thing your friend considers offensive, and you decide to keep doing it anyway because you disagree with their reason, I think your priorities are messed up.

And if a third party asks why X is offensive, you need to explain your friends reasons, not say "My friend is Asian and he says it's offensive so...".

Sure.

If nothing else, weak appeals to authority are counterproductive.

I don’t see an appeal to authority being made here. I see people who are negatively impacted by D&D’s presentation of race, expressing their issues with it, and being dismissed because “something, something, journalists.”

 

[Charlaquin]

What large group? How can there possibly be a large group of people offended by a product that has been out of print for decades and is hardly ever used. This is absurd on the face of things.

Except there absolutely is...?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I find the drow an interesting case.

I would want them to be different than most who dwell under the sun. Very pale makes more sense but obsidian black is simply alien.

no one on earth is the inky black of a moonless night...and def not with orange eyes.

we DO have folks that deal with albinism. Real people.

we likewise don’t have green people or genuinely gray people.

i think people are missing the first for the trees. And good elves aren’t all white by a long shot. Many are quite brown or copper.

if the artists actually drew the descriptions, this would not even be a debate.

 

[Sacrosanct]

What large group? How can there possibly be a large group of people offended by a product that has been out of print for decades and is hardly ever used. This is absurd on the face of things.

Well, I gave names above of some of those who have been leading the conversation. I'm guessing that if you got outside of whatever bubble you seem to be in, then you'd be aware of all these discussions going on in the gaming community. I mean, this topic has been going on for a while now, in every forum I can think of. All I have to say, is just because you aren't aware of them doesn't mean they don't exist.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Except there absolutely is...?

There's a pretty popular meme making the rounds, but I won't post it here because it's political. But the message seems to be apt. That being; "Well, it didn't happen to me, and I didn't know about it, therefore, it must not be an issue."

 

[Scribe]

If I invented drow these days I would make them ultra pale or albinos.
The sun would likely be poisonous to them as well not just make them blind or whatever.

Can't be albinism, I've seen that called out already elsewhere as an evil trope or something.

 

[Scribe]

There's a pretty popular meme making the rounds, but I won't post it here because it's political. But the message seems to be apt. That being; "Well, it didn't happen to me, and I didn't know about it, therefore, it must not be an issue."

Sounds like the Eagles not being worried about the Owls.

'never hurt me'.