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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7623316" data-attributes="member: 4937">Why?&nbsp; No.&nbsp; For example, there is a connection between the word 'orc' and the world 'orcus'.&nbsp; Is it presumptuous to assume demons are evil?&nbsp; Are we not allowed to incarnate good and evil in a fantasy?&nbsp; I mean it would be one thing if humans and elves were the incarnation of good, but they are not either in Tolkien (where many of the villains are human or elves) or in D&amp;D.&nbsp;&nbsp; The PC races are the people, the ones capable of both good or evil, and they are in contests with evil as represented by things like demons, dragons, giants, and orcs and advised and aided by powers of good.&nbsp; OK, you do realize that 'Curse of Strahd' is just an elaboration on I6: Ravenloft, a module written in 1982 and published in 1983, right?&nbsp; That was 35 years ago, and at the time published RPG were less than a decade old.&nbsp;&nbsp; So what you are bragging about as &quot;modern&quot; as a way of slandering the writers and creators of the past, is actually much closer to the beginning of RPGs as it is to the present day.&nbsp; There is a certain level of narcissism in this whole &quot;colonialist&quot; meme, in that what really seems to be going on is patting ones own back about how much better we are now than what we were like then, when as a community we seem to forget that we were out giving awards to abusive content creators whose work in my opinion clearly hinted at his unhealthy attitudes toward women (and people in general).&nbsp; Yet we are going to praise ourselves as being so much more enlightened than the Gygax, Tolkien, Arneson, Weiss, Hickman, Niles, Moldvay, Morris etc. because of some fantastically constructed idea that they were advancing 'Colonialist' ideas.&nbsp; I'm sorry, but this claim that is being tossed around requires a much higher standard of proof than it's being tossed around with.&nbsp;&nbsp; If 'Curse of Strahd' isn't colonialist, then 'Ravenloft' isn't either.&nbsp;&nbsp; So where are all these colonialist modules?&nbsp; Aerie of the Slave Lords?&nbsp; Is opposing slavers &quot;colonialist&quot;?&nbsp; Saber River?&nbsp; Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh?&nbsp; Dragons of Despair? Steading of the Hill Giant Chief? Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth?&nbsp; Expedition to the Barrier Peaks?&nbsp; Beyond the Crystal Cave?&nbsp; When I played 'Desert of Desolation' I never thought, &quot;Yeah, I'm colonizing the desert.&quot;, nor do I think there was any such intention.&nbsp;&nbsp; The factions are interesting, and you are quite possibly a native of the region.&nbsp; Certainly your ethnic background is not prescribed to you, nor are you facing off against orcs or whatever.&nbsp; In &quot;Dwellers in the Forbidden City&quot;, spoiler, the bad guys turn out to be colonizers of a sort, manipulating native peoples.&nbsp; Just how contorted do you intend to make this argument that early D&amp;D was colonialist?&nbsp; I'm struggling to think of anything I encountered that had &quot;colonialist&quot; ideas as a central theme during the early days of D&amp;D, but if for the sake of argument the early modules of TSR were rife with colonialist thinking, then given the fact that WotC seems unable to generate original adventure ideas but simply reprints the old content, everyone who is convinced by this whole 'colonialist' argument ought to for the sake of the consistency of their thinking, boycott WotC.Fundamentally, even the best attempts to advance this tripe seem to be taking a few small passages out of context and elevating their importance to greater than the rest of the text.&nbsp; I haven't seen any take on D&amp;D this ridiculous since reading a Jack Chick track.Errr... when was it not?&nbsp; I mean, heck, the whole XP primarily equals killing thing wasn't even a feature until 3e, so if that's your problem, then it's not old school games you have a problem with but modern ones.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7623316, member: 4937"] Why? No. For example, there is a connection between the word 'orc' and the world 'orcus'. Is it presumptuous to assume demons are evil? Are we not allowed to incarnate good and evil in a fantasy? I mean it would be one thing if humans and elves were the incarnation of good, but they are not either in Tolkien (where many of the villains are human or elves) or in D&D. The PC races are the people, the ones capable of both good or evil, and they are in contests with evil as represented by things like demons, dragons, giants, and orcs and advised and aided by powers of good. OK, you do realize that 'Curse of Strahd' is just an elaboration on I6: Ravenloft, a module written in 1982 and published in 1983, right? That was 35 years ago, and at the time published RPG were less than a decade old. So what you are bragging about as "modern" as a way of slandering the writers and creators of the past, is actually much closer to the beginning of RPGs as it is to the present day. There is a certain level of narcissism in this whole "colonialist" meme, in that what really seems to be going on is patting ones own back about how much better we are now than what we were like then, when as a community we seem to forget that we were out giving awards to abusive content creators whose work in my opinion clearly hinted at his unhealthy attitudes toward women (and people in general). Yet we are going to praise ourselves as being so much more enlightened than the Gygax, Tolkien, Arneson, Weiss, Hickman, Niles, Moldvay, Morris etc. because of some fantastically constructed idea that they were advancing 'Colonialist' ideas. I'm sorry, but this claim that is being tossed around requires a much higher standard of proof than it's being tossed around with. If 'Curse of Strahd' isn't colonialist, then 'Ravenloft' isn't either. So where are all these colonialist modules? Aerie of the Slave Lords? Is opposing slavers "colonialist"? Saber River? Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh? Dragons of Despair? Steading of the Hill Giant Chief? Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth? Expedition to the Barrier Peaks? Beyond the Crystal Cave? When I played 'Desert of Desolation' I never thought, "Yeah, I'm colonizing the desert.", nor do I think there was any such intention. The factions are interesting, and you are quite possibly a native of the region. Certainly your ethnic background is not prescribed to you, nor are you facing off against orcs or whatever. In "Dwellers in the Forbidden City", spoiler, the bad guys turn out to be colonizers of a sort, manipulating native peoples. Just how contorted do you intend to make this argument that early D&D was colonialist? I'm struggling to think of anything I encountered that had "colonialist" ideas as a central theme during the early days of D&D, but if for the sake of argument the early modules of TSR were rife with colonialist thinking, then given the fact that WotC seems unable to generate original adventure ideas but simply reprints the old content, everyone who is convinced by this whole 'colonialist' argument ought to for the sake of the consistency of their thinking, boycott WotC. Fundamentally, even the best attempts to advance this tripe seem to be taking a few small passages out of context and elevating their importance to greater than the rest of the text. I haven't seen any take on D&D this ridiculous since reading a Jack Chick track. Errr... when was it not? I mean, heck, the whole XP primarily equals killing thing wasn't even a feature until 3e, so if that's your problem, then it's not old school games you have a problem with but modern ones. [/QUOTE]

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