D&D (2024) Should 2014 Half Elves and Half Orcs be added to the 2025 SRD?

[Micah Sweet]

Fantasy racism is different because its existence in a game implies, players should roleplay a culture that legitimizes, institionalizes, enforces, and normalizes crimes against humanity.

Keep this out of D&D. Absolutely away from Core.

To be clear, racism is a crime against humanity.

So is genocide. Still something the bad guys try to do in RPGs.

No one is forcing the PCs to play racist characters.

 

[Yaarel]

So is genocide. Still something the bad guys try to do in RPGs.

No one is forcing the PCs to play racist characters.

Putting crimes against humanity into Core Rules, is pressuring typical D&D players to roleplay racists, and other forms of antihuman hate. It would be a systemic problem.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Putting crimes against humanity into Core Rules, is pressuring typical D&D players to roleplay racists, and other forms of antihuman hate.

Offering various ways to characterize cultures and relations in the book where such character options are provided is not pressuring. I know you want no lore at all in the PH, but I don't see it happening.

 

[Yaarel]

I know you want no lore at all in the PH, but I don't see it happening.

To be clear, I want detailed lore for each unique setting.

But core rules help DM homebrews and setting diversity when striving for setting-neutral rules.

 

[Maxperson]

Fantasy racism is different because its existence in a game implies, players should roleplay a culture that legitimizes, institionalizes, enforces, and normalizes crimes against humanity.

Torture, murder, and imprisonment(kidnapping qualifies) are also crimes against humanity. Racism on the other hand is not listed as a crime against humanity. Genocide is, as is the forced movement of populations, so a few forms of racism are on the list.

Keep this out of D&D. Absolutely away from Core.

To be clear, racism is a crime against humanity.

So you want murder, torture and imprisonment also removed from the game?

 

[Yaarel]

Offering various ways to characterize cultures and relations in the book where such character options are provided is not pressuring. I know you want no lore at all in the PH, but I don't see it happening.

Characterizing an entire "culture" as racist is itself a problem of demonizing a culture.

Villains generally work better when described as part of a "faction".

A faction may or may not acquire power in one or more cultures, but there will always be Good people resisting the faction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To be clear, I want detailed lore for each unique setting.

But core rules help DM homebrews and setting diversity when striving for setting-neutral rules.

Have you looked at Level Up? I'd definitely say that, despite actually having a single setting in which the adventures take place, the PH equivalent is more setting neutral than WotC's offering.

 

[Maxperson]

Putting crimes against humanity into Core Rules, is pressuring typical D&D players to roleplay racists, and other forms of antihuman hate. It would be a systemic problem.

This is flat out wrong. Existence of something in the rules is not pressure for players to engage in it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Characterizing an entire "culture" as racist is itself a problem of demonizing a culture.

Villains generally work better when described as part of a "faction".

A faction may or may not acquire power in one or more cultures, but there will always be Good people resisting the faction.

That's fine too.

 

[Yaarel]

So you want murder, torture and imprisonment also removed from the game?

You know I did not say your mischaracterization.

Crimes are crimes. There is no normalization of crimes.

Racism is inherently a normalized crime against humanity.