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

[Maxperson]

I'm sure because the people who truly are bothered by these things have realized that D&D is so vastly opposed to their worldview, they don't even try.

It's like saying you are concerned with militarization and trying to change the tone of "Call of Duty".

Which brings us right back to, "Why is racism different?" Hell, it's not even normalized in D&D at all. I see it rarely in any game, and it has been that way for me going back to 1984. A few off hand remarks here and there in the rules about some people being racist isn't normalization of racism.

 

[TiQuinn]

Which brings us right back to, "Why is racism different?" Hell, it's not even normalized in D&D at all. I see it rarely in any game, and it has been that way for me going back to 1984. A few off hand remarks here and there in the rules about some people being racist isn't normalization of racism.

There are people who experience racism and there are people who don't?

Honestly, I can answer this question but cannot do so without getting more political, which I'm not going to do here. Either that statement above resonates, or it doesn't.

 

[Maxperson]

There are people who experience racism and there are people who don't?

Same with murder, kidnapping, etc. Hell, I'm Jewish and there antisemitism going on all over America and the world right now.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Sure. But but why does it mean we cannot address in this in game? A lot of excellent and compelling stories allegories of real world issues. Think about Star Trek. Many of the plots are scifi allegories for modern issues.

Like you don't need to do that if you don't want to, but doing so is not "problematic" thing to be avoided, often quite the opposite.

Passively watching an allegory is not the same as being forced to play it out by people who have no idea or often intention of actually addressing anything beyond 'lol, your life sucks because you are green'.

 

[TiQuinn]

Same with murder, kidnapping, etc. Hell, I'm Jewish and there antisemitism going on all over America and the world right now.

And I go back to there's a probably a decision whether one who is bothered by fantasy violence even tries to change D&D, or moves onto other games, entirely.

Then there are people who decide they aren't going to continue perpetuating racist tropes in games and are not willing to simply move on from the game because they see an opportunity to do away with them.

 

[Minigiant]

Again

None of that is 5e core rules.

If your half elves or half orcs are met with discrimination, that's is your DM bringing it up.

 

[AnotherGuy]

There is a difference between "bad guys" existing, versus legitimizing and normalizing reallife hategroups. The second category can often be a reallife crime.

How are we legitimising and normalising real life hate groups?
At best we are acknowledging these atrocities existed within human history since much of our published settings were drawn from our history.

 

[Maxperson]

And I go back to there's a probably a decision whether one who is bothered by fantasy violence even tries to change D&D, or moves onto other games, entirely.

Then there are people who decide they aren't going to continue perpetuating racist tropes in games and are not willing to simply move on from the game because they see an opportunity to do away with them.

It's not hard at all to excise any of those things from your D&D game. I've been DMing for 41 years now and I've never brought in or had any desire to bring rape into any of my games. If I wanted to get rid of murder as a normalized thing, I'd run a political game with alternate methods of gaining XP. And so on.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Passively watching an allegory is not the same as being forced to play it out by people who have no idea or often intention of actually addressing anything beyond 'lol, your life sucks because you are green'.

Who is forcing who?

 

[TiQuinn]

It's not hard at all to excise any of those things from your D&D game. I've been DMing for 41 years now and I've never brought in or had any desire to bring rape into any of my games. If I wanted to get rid of murder as a normalized thing, I'd run a political game with alternate methods of gaining XP. And so on.

You are an experienced gamer who sounds dedicated to using D&D no matter what the style of game, but not everyone fits that description. D&D is, at its core, about fighting monsters. The vast majority of its ruleset, its artwork, it's raison d'etre is about that one thing. I've noticed that, left to its own devices, writers and designers tend to fall back to the same tropes about fantasy racism. As I said, even the Critical Role team does the same thing - Vex and Vax are two half-elves who were disowned by their elven father because he saw them as inferior - not pure elves. I read an entire book about them released just two or three years ago where this point was driven home.