D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Dannyalcatraz]

Wizards did create GAZ10. Wizards is the sole legal continuation of TSR, Inc.

No, that is factually and legally incorrect. WotC is TSR’s successor in interest regarding this project. GAZ10 was created by TSR in 1988, and is part of the IP WotC purchased when they bought the company.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Apparently Wizards/Hasbro does view itself as an educational institution. On the GAZ10: Orcs of Thar product page, Wizards/Hasbro states:

"Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible."

D&D is apparently here to teach me/us.

1) that is a description of the product, not the company.

2) any institution can educate, that does not transform it into an educational institution.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

I think people like to dunk on Orcs of Thar because:

1) It's fun
2) It's a way to demonstrate that you're against racism ('cause Orcs of Thar is obviously pretty cringey).
3) It's a way to signal membership in your tribe (I hate racism...me too!) and get social kudos.
4) It's a quick way to try and make the world a better place (all it takes is a social media post).

That's what you think.

It was not super fun to comb through GAZ10 and make a detailed presentation. I was impelled to do so after I was "roughed up" by a couple of fellow Mystara aficionados over on the Mystara Piazza.

The various "reasons" you give are pretty invalidating.

I do think that if we want to help indigenous people in a substantial way, that dunking on Orcs of Thar is not going to make that much of an impact, again because it's just a quickie way to raise awareness (social media posts take 5 minutes).

What the OP is doing by donating to the Lakota School at Pine Ridge is probably making a real difference, because it increases educational opportunities for kids who are suffering from significant poverty, and are still dealing with the aftermath of being subjugated 130 years ago.

If you really wanted to make a difference, don't post on enworld, don't edit D&D books, take a year off and go volunteer to work at that school. Live in a trailer, get paid next to nothing, deal with kids with emotional problems (due to poverty and bad family dynamics), while occasionally being told that "you don't belong here" by some of the more salty locals.

I speak from experience.

It's hard to argue with that. So I won't.
Nevertheless, I could say the same to you: "Gee cowpie, in the five minutes it took to post on ENWorld, you could've done paying work for 5 minutes and donated that to an indigenous charity."
It's invalidating. Life isn't a zero sum ledger.

 

[Yaarel]

DRAGON+ has lots of purposes, including teaching that "diversity is strength." It's not always about 5E crunch, but also about building goodwill toward the D&D brand as a whole.

DRAGON+ Issue #37 features amendatory statements on the drow:

"Everyone—aboveground and below—knows that all drow elves live in the Underdark and worship the Spider Queen.

"And everyone… is wrong.
[...]
"While these actions drove a wedge into the family tree of elvenkind, the drow that built Menzoberranzan are but a splinter group. The Forgotten Realms is about to learn a truth that has remained secret since Lolth’s initial betrayal.

“The spider-inspired ‘udadrow’ expression of the drow elves that D&D fans currently know is based on Lolth’s influence over a pocket of elves who became isolationist, cutting themselves off from the rest of drow culture,” explains Franchise Creative Director Jeremy Jarvis. “There are whole societies of drow that did not follow Lolth into the Underdark. Two such groups are the ‘aevendrow’ and the ‘lorendrow’, or the starlight elves and the greenshadow elves respectively.”
[...]
"As part of this worldbuilding we had to show that Drizzt was hardly unique as an udadrow who isn’t evil."

***
The article also features an interview with R.A. Salvatore where he touches on the amendatory new direction he's going with the drow.

As far as I can tell, the recent erratum to the Players Handbook suggests, the drow didnt "follow Lolth into the Underdark".

Rather, the elf variants adapted magically to their respective environments, whence the drow elf variant adapted to their Underdark environment. Thus all drow are part of the Underdark and as such can magically create darkness and light. Lolth only corrupted some of these original drow.



"
As a drow, you are infused with the magic of the Underdark, an underground realm of wonders and horrors rarely seen on the surface above. You are at home in shadows and, thanks to your innate magic, learn to conjure forth both light and darkness.

Your kin tend to have stark white hair and grayish skin of many hues.

The cult of the god Lolth, Queen of Spiders, has corrupted some of the oldest drow cities, especially in the worlds of Oerth and Toril. Eberron, Krynn, and other realms have escaped the cult’s influence − for now.

Wherever the cult lurks, drow heroes stand on the front lines in the war against it, seeking to sunder Lolth’s web.

"



I like this nuance better. The drow are naturally gray-skinned and are native to the Underdark. Evil Lolth is superfluous.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Note: the moderators of the Mystara Piazza have repeatedly shut down anyone who speaks of racial prejudice in GAZ10. And have allowed the same posters to dogpile on anyone who attempts to address this. Any person who says that GAZ10 contains racist content is publicly chastised by the moderators as being "political", while those who say GAZ10 isn't at all racist, and join in to dogpile and "rough up" the original poster, are not chastised.

August 2020
June 2021
December 2021 (I started this thread.)

 

[el-remmen]

Note: the moderators of the Mystara Piazza have repeatedly shut down anyone who speaks of racial prejudice in GAZ10. And the same posters have dogpiled on anyone who attempts to address this. Any person who says that GAZ10 contains racist content is publicly chastised by the moderators as being "political", while those who say GAZ10 isn't at all racist, and join in to dogpile and "rough up" the original poster, are not chastised.

June 2021 (I was not previously aware of this thread till just now.)
December 2021 (I started this thread.)

Looked over some of that earlier thread and Wow. The fact that there are people who see GAZ10 as an "improvement" over previous representation is just . I should never be surprised at this point, but sometimes I still am.

 

[Mirtek]

Apparently Wizards/Hasbro does view itself as an educational institution. On the GAZ10: Orcs of Thar product page, Wizards/Hasbro states:

"Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible."

D&D is apparently here to teach me/us.

Either that or it's simply their variant of Generic Brand Video

Just about every company has one of those nowadays and 99% just have them because you're supposed to have one and no one at the company cares a bit about it.

I work in a medium company, ~11k employees worldwide, doing a boring product for a boring industry and of course we have our mission and values leaflet and ever couple of years pay a couple of ten thousand dollars to some PR company to refresh it. Mostly just slightly rewording the same empty statements and replace a background of a green forest with a background of a clean river, etc.

Really just a fig leaf that someone believes investors are requiring you to have. Or investors, that don't really care either, believing they have to require it from their investments

 

[Zardnaar]

Note: the moderators of the Mystara Piazza have repeatedly shut down anyone who speaks of racial prejudice in GAZ10. And the same posters have dogpiled on anyone who attempts to address this. Any person who says that GAZ10 contains racist content is publicly chastised by the moderators as being "political", while those who say GAZ10 isn't at all racist, and join in to dogpile and "rough up" the original poster, are not chastised.

June 2021 (I was not previously aware of this thread till just now.)
December 2021 (I started this thread.)

Probably because it just fractures the community and by its nature they're fans of Mystara.

If you go there you're essentially dumping over their yum. Their house their castle.

Note I'm not a Mystara fan as such I like parts of it and I like B/X mechanics.

It's not rocket science if your gonna go dump over stuff they like you're gonna get push back.

I haven't gone and bought any OSR product for years (pre 5E) but neither do I go to places they like hanging out to argue with them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Note: the moderators of the Mystara Piazza have repeatedly shut down anyone who speaks of racial prejudice in GAZ10. And the same posters have dogpiled on anyone who attempts to address this. Any person who says that GAZ10 contains racist content is publicly chastised by the moderators as being "political", while those who say GAZ10 isn't at all racist, and join in to dogpile and "rough up" the original poster, are not chastised.

June 2021 (I was not previously aware of this thread till just now.)
December 2021 (I started this thread.)

Mod Note:

Because it’s tangentially relevant to provide context, I’m letting this stand. But I am issuing this reminder that generally, ENWorld does not support importing drama from other boards. So tread carefully.

 

[Baron Opal II]

Wizards did create GAZ10. Wizards is the sole legal continuation of TSR, Inc.

No, they acquired it. You can take them to task for continuing to publish it, but they didn't create it. That was a different team, time, and company.