You may disagree with them. You may think they are over-reacting. You may think they are too sensitive.
I'll kindly ask, since you have done this multiple times in this thread, to stop putting words in my mouth.
But they really feel that way, and because of it they don't really enjoy playing D&D. And there are lots of them.
Then the editors at WotC call you up and say, "Hey, we've been following you on Enworld and we think you are deeply insightful. What should we do? Change the language, or tell that particular audience to 'get over it'? It's your call."
What do you tell them (before you wake up)?
I would say 'Please continue to make distinctions between 'every member of X' and 'some members of X'. The example of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, as a discussion on many of these topics, should be continued in the game lore via core rule books, and fiction to make it clear that not all Orcs....'
As an example, this line from Volo's Guide to Monsters: "No matter how domesticated an orc might seem, its blood lust flows just beneath the surface. With its instinctive love of battle and its desire to prove its strength, an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task."
The line about how "domesticated" an orc is is uncomfortably like how white people once described Black (and other) people--little more than animals who could be "domesticated" but were still savage.
And while yes, in a fantasy world, or a world with uplifted animals or things like that, you could say this is literally true, unlike in the real world--but it still has disturbing real-world analogues, even if the creature you're talking about is nothing like anything from the real world.
Yeah, there's some language there that should have been rethought, but look specifically at the bold section. We can accept that there are some real-world comparisons that COULD be made, but unless there are some absolute nailed down specifics, my issue is simply with the (imo) misguided view that Orcs = Black people.
I mean if we want to call Tolkien a racist, and a fascist, because he had 'better humans' and 'lesser humans' and because some of his people's drew power from a 'source' or father/mother land, then simply wrap it up and pack it in. Fantasy, in the Tolkien/FR framework, is built on such concepts, fundamentally, while D&D itself has been for however many years been about that Dungeon crawl, killing stuff, taking the loot, and living on as a legend.
Its just part of the territory that those that are getting killed, are also sentient, and dont wish to be killed.
This is a part of fantasy. That biological differences are real, and that these races have been created by their gods in a specific image, and fundamentally going all the way to that God vs God level, there has been genocidal war between the races of Elves/Dwarves, and Orcs.
That's legit part of the setting, and yes its ugly, and yes its brushed over.
@Aldarc I dont think it was me talking about WOW, but WoW see's some of this too for sure.
In the end, I'm not saying these themes dont exist in the framework of the setting, and perhaps Fantasy at large. If I have said that, I was incorrect and apologize.
What I'm simply saying is that I disagree with the association with actual peoples, or cultures, when looking at these monster (goblin, orc, whatever) races. That, I dont get, because just because a prejudice or belief existed, does not make it fact, in the case of the real world, and no culture, that I know of off the top of my head, was a rampaging, pillaging horde, like Orcs have been portrayed.
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