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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Helldritch" data-source="post: 8020514" data-attributes="member: 6855114">It is not what is written in the book that is important, it is how you behave at your table.I have always seen D&D as an inclusive game. I have had literally hundreds (well almost two hundred) of players during the 40 years that I have been playing and DMing. I can say that Ihave done my share to bring the hobby into mainstream by introducing so many people in the hobby. Some stayed, others did not.The one driving thing at my table and a lot of other tables I have seen, is that D&D is not racist. It brings people together no matter their ethnicities or the color of their skin or their religious beliefs or their gender and their sexual preference.If this mindset had only been at my table I might feel some of the concern that some people get on this forum. But throughout the years, this mindset was at every tables I have seen. Rich, poor, man, woman, black, white, asian, muslim, catholic, atheist sexual orientation or whatever comes to mind, everyone has always been welcomed. Everyone save those with a negative mindset about any of the above. Even then, we would try to educate first. It worked most of the time saved for the most closed minded persons I ever met.So when I hear that the game that opened the eyes of so many people is racist or has racist connotations; I can't even begin to comprehend. I always fought these negative bias in the real world. Never did it crossed my mind to see an orc as something other than an imaginary creature, useful for story telling. Where some are making analogies, I simply don't. For me, such analogies are simply an incongruity stretched to the limits or any sanity. You believe that orcs are a secret representation of black people? Let me show you how this could relate to goth, ostrogoth, Maya, Huns, Romans, Mesopotamia and zounds of other people throughout history and continents.Yes, sometimes, the game takes its inspiration from real world. Namely the Vistani that could be related to the Roma. Even I can see it. It is the DM's job to make sure that if someone at his table is from that ethnicity, to explain that it has nothing to do with him/her but that it is simply a thrope for story telling., nothing more. I would advise to avoid using Vistani if the person can't help but to feel bad or at the very least downplay the bad aspects and enhance the nobler aspects of the culture.Creators use and find inspiration from around the world. At some point, you can find references to anything you want if you work, stretched what is written and dig far enough. We should stop trying to find racism and ugliness where there is not really enough to be really certain and fight the ugly parts of our real society. The fight for fairness for all is in the real world, not in our game.Edit: added the word time that was missing at the end of third paragraph</blockquote>

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