D&D General Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yeah, I agree @Chaosmancer. I'm aware you were just answering a question, but I think we could pursue this topic further (Based on the fact that no one really answered my question, I think I'll drop it).

I think it's a dumb argument to say "If we're changing the Drow and Orcs, why not every other monster" but I think we should consider the other races as well, just to make them more open. Duergar are a glaring example of this, as well as goblinoids.

I believe that if they were to revise Orcs and Drow in another catastrophically world-changing event in Forgotten Realms, they should take the opportunity to do this for Goblinoids, Duergar, and other races depicted similarly.

 

[Maxperson]

If you think the existence of a yacht club is the same as the gatekeeping I'm talking about, I'm afraid you've aggressively missed the point.

You said "gate-keeping on principle." That means any gatekeeping, not just specific gatekeeping you are against.

To use your example to illustrate: a yacht club with no gatekeeping would be one which any yacht owner is allowed to join. Contrast that to a yacht club that you can only join if an existing member specifically invites you, or one which has a review board for entry applications that can say anything to the equivalent of "yes, you have a yacht... but are you really a yacht person?" That is what gatekeeping is.

A yacht club keeps out anyone without a yacht, even those who want to join. All you're doing there is showing two different types of gatekeeping. One you don't mind and one that you do.

 

[Chaosmancer]

One odd thing with Goblins for me, is that their "an evil deity made me" story is a bit more... palatable?

It is definitely still not great, but the fact that Magbuliyet is an unknown entity, who killed their gods and took goblins to force them to become one people. And the fragments of the gods are still fighting back.... I can see more fun things coming out of them.

I just drop the cowardice for goblins and lean into the "soldier society" of hobgoblins. They have massive cities after all, so there are a lot of implicit things that must be happening in the background for Hobgoblins to function well, and since I've never seen a spotlight put on them, anything troubling with their depictions hasn't been obvious to me

 

[Mercurius]

There's ways to do interesting things with the Duergar. Way I see it? Thats story is how dwarves tell it. Truth of it is much messier, and my favourite is quite simple: The gods couldn't do -anything- due to Mind Flayers being Mind Flayers and managing to sever the link, just flat out hiding them from divine presences, and a chance meeting up of the two resulted in someone saying something stupid and things devolving to the current situation

Reconcilation between the two is possible but not gonna be easy and it'd take centuries. But its possible

This is good and makes for an interesting story arc. Hook: PCs are approached by a desperate duergar who has, somehow, freed him/herself from the psychic enslavement that the mind flayers still hold on the duergar (if only as a hereditary "psychic virus"). Perhaps one of the players can play this duergar. The PCs then go on a quest to free the duergar.

As far the victim thing goes, @Chaosmancer , I think your problem is more a matter of overly connecting fantasy and reality. Let fantasy be an imaginative playground in its own right, without having to strain everything through the sieve of real-life ideology and ethics. The whole point of role-play is to take on a role within an imaginary world, to engage in the world as it is, not as our world is. Sure, there are symbolic elements, but being too concrete about them leads to over "allegorizing" and leads us out of fantasy immersion.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

You said "gate-keeping on principle." That means any gatekeeping, not just specific gatekeeping you are against.


A yacht club keeps out anyone without a yacht, even those who want to join. All you're doing there is showing two different types of gatekeeping. One you don't mind and one that you do.

You are arbitrarily insisting that the definition of the word is different than what everyone I've ever experienced using the word besides you defines it as just so you can tell me I am wrong.

And your argument is unreasonable besides that because the definition you are trying to set for the word means that a game not being 100% free is gatekeeping, and so is it not being printed in every language on earth, and so is having to actually go get the game whether online or in person - that's a functionally useless definition.

 

[Maxperson]

You are arbitrarily insisting that the definition of the word is different than what everyone I've ever experienced using the word besides you defines it as just so you can tell me I am wrong.

Every time I've seen it used, here and elsewhere, people used it to mean, "Setting up a gate to keep certain people out." Setting up a gate to specifically keep the poor and middle classes out qualifies.

 

[Eubani]

I don't think there needs to be a in world change just a change in explanation in the real world. Instead of saying race XYZ is evil and leaving it at that. The designers need to delve in to the social, environmental, magical. religious forces acting upon the individuals that leads to the behaviour that other races usually see of that race and maybe give a view to members of that race not faced with those pressures.

 

[Hussar]

I think largely goblins get a pass because the goblin description doesn't really parallel real world descriptions. The description of goblins in the 5e Monster Manual is:

Goblins are small, black-hearted, selfish humanoids that lair in caves, abandoned mines, despoiled dungeons and other dismal settings. Individually weak, goblins gather in large, sometimes overwhelming - numbers. They crave power and regularly abuse whatever authority they obtain.

There's nothing really offensive there is there? There's no parallels to be drawn, at all. It's not like half goblins make better goblins. There's no crossbreeding issues. There's no talk about intelligence or whatnot. They're evil, but, ok, being evil was never the issue.

The duegar example, OTOH, I can see where it's coming from. Not sure it needs to be worked on, but, I can certainly see where the parallels lie. It does look a LOT like victim blaming. Note, the Monster Manual description contains nothing of this. I'm assuming this comes from Volo's?

 

[Imaculata]

I think as soon as you allow a certain evil monster to be played as a race, you'll run into issues incorporating that monster into the setting, and having him work together with the other races. The only solution then is to give them nuance and make them not pure evil. Aside from the problematic language, it just makes sense gameplay wise to expand on their representation. I'm in favor of it, although I should note that I never use orcs and elves in my campaigns if I can help it.

 

[Aldarc]

The duegar example, OTOH, I can see where it's coming from. Not sure it needs to be worked on, but, I can certainly see where the parallels lie. It does look a LOT like victim blaming. Note, the Monster Manual description contains nothing of this. I'm assuming this comes from Volo's?

I think that it comes from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.