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

[Derren]

My WIP novel is set in a world that doesn't have a lot of overt homophobia, but there are expectations of the nobility that are expected to outweigh any individual nobles' own preferences. It's the source of a major subplot, because the reluctant hero who does not want to become the Rightful King-- the prophecy specifies a Knight and a Squire, but is ambiguous which is which-- is very much in love with the older, commonborn widower who serves as his brother's left-hand man.

He loves the Princess in his own right, easily as much as his brother does-- if not moreso, because his brother's kind of a dick-- but doesn't want to marry her, any more than he wants to sit on the throne.

Not sure whats all that special about plots like this. That there are expectations to nobility was true in real life to and while marriages out of love did happen more often, especially when you belonged to certain families, marriage was done for money or politics.

As for chainmail bikinis, I like my armor to be functional. If you want to look at barely clothed woman, there are other books/magazines for that. Yet, the producers seemed to have thought that putting half naked womans into the books increases sales.

 

[jgsugden]

D&D is flexible.

That flexibility means that if someone chooses to do so, they can use the ruleset to create a game where you have a race war and cleanse an "offending race", in a thinly veiled fantasy about what it would be "like" to do it in the real world.

Or, you can rewrite the rules that you have in your hands now for use in your game to remove the associations between culture and race from the game, eliminate alignment, etc... to do your best to make your game as non-offensive as possible.

Those are not what we're dealing with now. We're dealing with what template you put out there that people adapt off of to create their own games, and the expectations people can have for games run at conventions, etc....

To that end, I say strip out the guts that could offend. If people want the sacred cows for their games, they know them and can pull out the Tolkien inspired build. If not, they can draw inspiration from parts of Exandria, from WOW, or other alternative or more modern stories that take a wider (or just different) approach.

 

[FrogReaver]

I wanted to start a new thread to explore a specific element of recent discussions around D&D races that I think has the potential to at least encourage some kind of integration.

As I see it, there are two core truths or meanings that are underlying the two "sides" in the ongoing debate that, if we tease them out from the more extreme variants, are both quite reasonable (with the caveat that I don't like the idea of "two-sidedness," and find this polarization to be a major part of the problem):

1) D&D Heritage. D&D heritage, as a whole, is meaningful and should be preserved, including the act of creative imagination for its own sake, and the nature of fantasy as distinct from reality.

2) Inclusivity. The D&D game should be welcoming and inclusive to anyone who wants to play it, no matter their ethnicity, gender, sexual preference or identity, ideology, disability, etc.

If we start from looking at those two points, I think it would be difficult to find that--taken on their own--they aren't both meaningful and valid, and worthy of consideration.

Most of the disagreements seem to stem from adherents of either position feeling that the other position in some way undermines their chosen position. This thread is based on the premise that this doesn't need to be the case--that there are ways to integrate both positions, to both preserve D&D heritage and continue to increase inclusiveness.

Now how that can be done is debatable. But if we start from a place of agreement that both are valuable, and most importantly, that both can be integrated into a broader framework, then I think tremendous progress can be made. There probably (definitely) isn't a way to please everyone, and most of us will likely have to bend or adapt our perspective to varying degrees, depending upon how extreme we are one way or the other.

Some questions to be explored could be:

1) Do you agree that both "truths" are important and worth acknowledging and nourishing? If not, why not? If so, then...

2) How to do so in a way that preserves/nourishes the core of both? What can and should be sacrificed? What shouldn't be?

3) If you adhere to one side or the other, what sort of concessions on your part do you feel are reasonable? What are not reasonable?

I have my own ideas on this that I've shared in other threads, but would rather leave it as open-ended, and engage as the discussion goes forward.

While everyone is free to participate however they choose, I would only ask that you at least consider the importance of both views.

1-3) In terms of Heritage - Change is inevitable and I'm all for changing D&D to make it better and even more fun. That said I want well thought out changes that aren't a knee-jerk reaction to seeing racist parallels in everything. Oh and please don't touch what is already established. When you are ready to make these kinds of changes put out some new material such as a setting or a new edition or alternate setting rules to accomplish it. In terms of Inclusivity - you can't be inclusive to everyone, someone will get left out because their are contradictions between beliefs and viewpoints. That's the existential problem of unbridled inclusivity. Which brings me to the inevitable question of - who or what deems who or what is worthy of being included? It's only after those specifics are worked out that we can talk about specific sacrifices/concessions and even whether that's the kind of inclusivity we want?

 

[FrogReaver]

To that end, I say strip out the guts that could offend. If people want the sacred cows for their games, they know them and can pull out the Tolkien inspired build. If not, they can draw inspiration from parts of Exandria, from WOW, or other alternative or more modern stories that take a wider (or just different) approach.

Even if the act of stripping out the guts that could offend will also offend others?

 

[FrogReaver]

Popper's Paradox.
At the end of the day the tolerant can't tolerate the intolerant.

However.. note tolerant, and all those four may be tolerant, thus co-exist.

I think determining who is tolerant and who is intolerant is quite a bit more difficult than you make it out to be.

 

[Bawylie]

It may have been a mistake to select a default setting when designing the core rulebooks. Although it’s easy to understand why they did it, the mistake is in needlessly conflating lore and mechanics.

D&D is a game system. Not actually a game. Imagine a monster manual that has a variety of orc stat blocks but that doesn’t say anything about their culture. Not good enough. We want some of that culture. So instead of just stat block, perhaps we have a Orcs in the Multiverse section that details some notable orcs in d&d across various media/adventures and has some bullet points like:
• The orcs of the Forgotten Realms are created by their evil deity Gruumsh to do his evil work. They are violent and destructive.
• The orcs of eberron are naturalists, tribal, and spiritual. They are close to the land.
• The orcs of bawylie’s home campaign revere legendary orcish heroes and group up with others in tribes or clans that try to emulate one or more of those heroes. The Robert’s Clans are lawful good and seek to free their holy land from occupation. The Tom clan favors heavy armor and are fanatical dragon slayers. The tribe of Merl are chaotic (good or evil) seafaring marauders, fixed on gold. They favor axes.
•Orcs in your game may follow any of the descriptions listed here, or may have some other cultures and organizations altogether. Generally, they tend to be mighty and disorganized and their stat blocks reflect this, but it is not universally true.

Etc.

Idk exactly how we might do it. I think it might’ve been beneficial to properly appreciate the difference between game mechanics and setting lore and to reserve space for variety. We could’ve had plenty of space for ‘classic’ Orcs (with some care to avoid racist language) and orcs from other well-known settings. Probably a lot of traditional d&d monsters should get that kind of treatment. Not the gelatinous cube - who cares? But certainly some creatures could benefit from a multiversal perspective.

Anyway, that’s how I think you address heritage and inclusivity. First separate the game mechanic from the setting, so there is no true default or absolutist statements regarding a game mechanic in the lore. Then second, offer suggestions or describe how those mechanics might be used in a variety of settings, none of which are mandatory. Doesn’t have to be overly wordy, either. Just a snippet to inspire. They do it with classes, they can do it with other game mechanics too.

 

[FrogReaver]

It may have been a mistake to select a default setting when designing the core rulebooks. Although it’s easy to understand why they did it, the mistake is in needlessly conflating lore and mechanics.

D&D is a game system. Not actually a game. Imagine a monster manual that has a variety of orc stat blocks but that doesn’t say anything about their culture. Not good enough. We want some of that culture. So instead of just stat block, perhaps we have a Orcs in the Multiverse section that details some notable orcs in d&d across various media/adventures and has some bullet points like:
• The orcs of the Forgotten Realms are created by their evil deity Gruumsh to do his evil work. They are violent and destructive.
• The orcs of eberron are naturalists, tribal, and spiritual. They are close to the land.
• The orcs of bawylie’s home campaign revere legendary orcish heroes and group up with others in tribes or clans that try to emulate one or more of those heroes. The Robert’s Clans are lawful good and seek to free their holy land from occupation. The Tom clan favors heavy armor and are fanatical dragon slayers. The tribe of Merl are chaotic (good or evil) seafaring marauders, fixed on gold. They favor axes.
•Orcs in your game may follow any of the descriptions listed here, or may have some other cultures and organizations altogether. Generally, they tend to be mighty and disorganized and their stat blocks reflect this, but it is not universally true.

Etc.

Idk exactly how we might do it. I think it might’ve been beneficial to properly appreciate the difference between game mechanics and setting lore and to reserve space for variety. We could’ve had plenty of space for ‘classic’ Orcs (with some care to avoid racist language) and orcs from other well-known settings. Probably a lot of traditional d&d monsters should get that kind of treatment. Not the gelatinous cube - who cares? But certainly some creatures could benefit from a multiversal perspective.

Anyway, that’s how I think you address heritage and inclusivity. First separate the game mechanic from the setting, so there is no true default or absolutist statements regarding a game mechanic in the lore. Then second, offer suggestions or describe how those mechanics might be used in a variety of settings, none of which are mandatory. Doesn’t have to be overly wordy, either. Just a snippet to inspire. They do it with classes, they can do it with other game mechanics too.

Maybe, but it seems to me the inclusivity side demands anything other than the removal of traditional orcs is a no go.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

It may have been a mistake to select a default setting when designing the core rulebooks. Although it’s easy to understand why they did it, the mistake is in needlessly conflating lore and mechanics.

D&D is a game system. Not actually a game. Imagine a monster manual that has a variety of orc stat blocks but that doesn’t say anything about their culture. Not good enough. We want some of that culture. So instead of just stat block, perhaps we have a Orcs in the Multiverse section that details some notable orcs in d&d across various media/adventures and has some bullet points like:
• The orcs of the Forgotten Realms are created by their evil deity Gruumsh to do his evil work. They are violent and destructive.
• The orcs of eberron are naturalists, tribal, and spiritual. They are close to the land.
• The orcs of bawylie’s home campaign revere legendary orcish heroes and group up with others in tribes or clans that try to emulate one or more of those heroes. The Robert’s Clans are lawful good and seek to free their holy land from occupation. The Tom clan favors heavy armor and are fanatical dragon slayers. The tribe of Merl are chaotic (good or evil) seafaring marauders, fixed on gold. They favor axes.
•Orcs in your game may follow any of the descriptions listed here, or may have some other cultures and organizations altogether. Generally, they tend to be mighty and disorganized and their stat blocks reflect this, but it is not universally true.

Etc.

Idk exactly how we might do it. I think it might’ve been beneficial to properly appreciate the difference between game mechanics and setting lore and to reserve space for variety. We could’ve had plenty of space for ‘classic’ Orcs (with some care to avoid racist language) and orcs from other well-known settings. Probably a lot of traditional d&d monsters should get that kind of treatment. Not the gelatinous cube - who cares? But certainly some creatures could benefit from a multiversal perspective.

Anyway, that’s how I think you address heritage and inclusivity. First separate the game mechanic from the setting, so there is no true default or absolutist statements regarding a game mechanic in the lore. Then second, offer suggestions or describe how those mechanics might be used in a variety of settings, none of which are mandatory. Doesn’t have to be overly wordy, either. Just a snippet to inspire. They do it with classes, they can do it with other game mechanics too.

You know, I was going to add this in my post above but I wasn't sure if it had been discussed in any of the other threads. Core Mechanics of a monster with various takes on the flavour from different settings would be helpful. The problem with that is the MM would be HUGE.

You could trim down the description of Monsters to broad strokes and then release lots of Setting Material but then you lose the utility of being able to run a game with just the Core 3 Books: PHB, DMG, MM. For most DMs, they don't need a lot of fluff because they know a lot of the various takes on creatures but, for new players, having almost no description could make it less accessible. OTOH, maybe it would allow for more creativity since a new player could make that creature into anything they like since they lack the baggage of all the various settings.

I mean, I often take stat blocks and reskin them as different things to make encounters feel more fresh.

But, yes, setting and mechanics could live in separate books and the game would work just fine. Then WotC can sell more books which works for their bottom line.

 

[Bawylie]

Maybe, but it seems to me the inclusivity side demands anything other than the removal of traditional orcs is a no go.

I think it’s more to do with the language chosen to describe them than their very existence (although this may be better discussed elsewhere).

 

[Oofta]

I think it’s more to do with the language chosen to describe them than their very existence (although this may be better discussed elsewhere).

This is somewhat pertinent because evil monsters is part of the heritage of D&D. If you're going to keep the concept of sentient creatures being effectively always evil, there are some people who are going to have an issue with it. Greedy dragons that horde gold and scheme evil deeds could be considered a representation of Jews. Conniving evil female seductresses is misogynistic. People who are ugly or for whatever reason don't fit our definition of normal could be considered aberrations and so on.

But it's already had thousands of posts in the other threads.

My (obviously biased) summary?

It's okay to have evil monsters: It's a complex issue and perhaps some imagery and text could be modified. The basic concept of evil monsters is common and not unique to D&D nor is it inherently wrong. It's a game, the monsters are not real. Include some links to articles and studies that show no correlation between D&D and racism.​

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Depicting monsters (orcs specifically) as evil: It's racist because [insert ethnicity or religion] have also been called evil and if you don't agree you're a racist and we'll sit here and shake our heads in disbelief that you don't agree.​

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So I don't see anything productive coming out of any further discussion.