Whose the racist? The person who accepts these imaginary game-pieces as written, or the person who looks at the description of an orc and goes "Holy shit, those sound just like ______ people!"?
Generally everyone that cries racism are usually the racist....it's what they always talk about, it's what they live and breath and when they fail they blame others instead of looking at themselves...
What I'm asking myself is: If we can't have/handle "evil" things in fiction, how will we be able to understand, handle, cope and fight against it in real life? I want my drow to be evil, not misunderstood. I would also want them to be an evil society not just "born with it". Same with Ogres, Goblins, Kobolds and so on. There should be evil, ruthless, destructive societies to fight against.
I think the problem is the idea that they're *inherently* evil, yeah. But that's never been the case with the Drow. Drow are the way they are because their society is under the thumb of a goddess of evil and chaos who thinks she owns all of them - Drow who escape to the surface tend to end up pretty normal and well-adjusted, once they get used to not being in Lolth-sworn Drow society anymore. The same is generally true for orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc. Orcs act the way they do because Gruumsh is awful and demands conquest and violence. The Goblinoids' pantheon was *literally* conquered by a god who wants to enslave their souls after they die. But all of this varies based on setting, which might be one of the reasons they're removing it. The current "default setting" might be Forgotten Realms, but 5e has always emphasized their other settings as well, and (for example) Maglubiyet, the goblins' conqueror-god, doesn't exist in the Dragonlance setting. Dragonlance doesn't have orcs or drow *at all* and never has, though, being more concerned with doing its own thing. Admittedly with Drow, their narrative purpose (people who should ideally want to escape their chaotic-evil society and get out from under the thumb of their goddess) has always conflicted with their *gameplay* purpose (enemies who are intelligent enough to use tactics the way the PCs do, without any of the OP abilities of extraplanar evils like devils, who you can still fight and kill and not have to worry about moral ambiguity for engaging in that sort of violence. That's part of why they had magic weapons that dissolved when brought back to the surface, for example, as part of their gameplay function of being intelligent, tactical monsters that the PCs can fight and kill as heroes without worrying about breaking the game).
The amount of otherwise intelligent people that have bought into the nonsense that fantasy racism equals real world racism is astounding. Alphastream is free to run games however he likes, but him and the people like him are turning wotc 5e into the most vanilla milk toast version of the game. WOTC has no business trying to preach morality to anyone. Keep up the great work guys.
I don't have problems with truly terrible, vile things (slavery, murder, devil-worship, whatever) existing in the game. The whole point of D&D is that we're the good guys, fighting against that kind of thing! If there are no slaves, heroes can't free them.
I introduced my boys to AD&D about 13 years ago when they were 5 and 7. The adventure was that a group of kobolds who lived in the city sewers stole a cookie recipe from the character's Auntie Mae, and it was up to the players, two very young children, to track down the kobolds and negotiate to get the recipe back so Auntie Mae could bake cookies for a birthday party. My boys reached an agreement with the kobolds that Auntie Mae would bake extra cookies to give to the kobolds if they'd return the recipe. It was a very "G" rated adventure with a few traps and puzzles to figure out, but nothing that caused any damage and there was definitely zero combat, unless you count the arm wrestling competition with a Lizard Man to gain access deeper into the sewer. This adventure was designed for 2 children, but might be right on par with WotC's kinder, gentler crap they're putting out today for adults.
There is Nilonim, an imprisoned neutral good dissident drow leader (with the hint that there is his band of drow rebels attempting to overthrow evil rule) in Gygax’s 1978 D3 The Vault of the Drow. So the creator of the D&D drow introduced the concept of good drow from the outset.
I'm working on a TTRPG system (Built on Basic Fantasy, so it'll be open source as well) and the plan is to build a parallel cosmology and mythos to D&D's that reimagines the RPG tropes we love in a truly medieval fashion, and yes, the Undermourn will be a haven of depravity and madness and monsters will be truly monstrous. If you want classic adventures of high heroics, eldritch weirdness and good triumphing over evil, keep an eye on my stuff!
On the slavery thing, don't forget that it's not just endentured servitude. There are sex slavers out there. We had a case some years ago where a local girl was found way up in Cincinnati tied up inside a U Haul being prepped to sell to some circle of perverts.
When it comes to sanitizing language, I'm firmly in the late, great George Carlin's camp. All it does is remove the humanity and emotional impact from it and allow people to commit worse atrocities because the language makes it seem "not that bad".
It’s important to remember that science fiction and fantasy proliferated as literary genres largely on their ability to address real-world social issues without the baggage of history. Nobody is going to get “triggered” by slavery in the Underdark because they feel like they or their heritage is being attacked. If we take away all of the safe spaces for talking about these subjects, we’re just reinforcing ignorance. Kudos to you folks for calling it out!
Too true. My gut tells me that anyone hating an issue with these topics are doing so for performative reasons rather than true trauma. The latter folks likely have bigger fish to fry than worrying about the content of an rpg.
I find it difficult to take the 'sensitivity rewriters' seriously. Their purpose seems to be to use words that hint at the meaning, but don't directly address the meaning. I think this is harmful. I work in a field where I am constantly inundated with redirection of true meaning. While I do understand, to a point, their reasoning, I think they fall under the good intentions folk. And we know where that paved road leads. Keep up the good fight. Enjoyed the video.
The reason I have a problem with these changes is, whenever old D&D addressed anything like slavery etc, it was solely the domain of bad guys. None of that was endorsed by the old versions (what some players did is on them). That's what the characters were fighting against, and often the reason they were fighting at all, if they had backstories.
When did WotC become the morality police? That was inevitable as soon as they moved to Seattle. Though to be fair, we saw this in earlier editions to appease the religious conservatives in the elimination of terms like demons and devils. Next they'll want to get rid of Dungeon Master - "Master" is 'problematic' - and replace it with something like Dungeon Guide.
in my games part of my session zero is directly addressing problematic content. i ted to go around the table and ask people about what are their hard and soft lines they just dont want to be part of the game, or dont want to directly come into contact with. usually i set my boundries of some really basic safety lines like no wierd stuff with kids and i dont want to tell a story with SA as a feature in focus, but i also let other people put their own foibles on the line, like i have a friend who cant deal with eye trauma detail, so im not going to be mean to my friend and have detailed descriptions of that in my game. the second layer of session zero is a disclaimer. i make clear that i run a game where the heroes are heroic, or on a journey to become heroic, so i expect people to play someone who fits in that role, or who is going to going to roleplay stepping into that role. and part of the story is going to be a range of villians, and i will be telegraphing these evil doers who need stopping by having them do unforgivably evil thing. and you know the best way a fantasy hero can stop a slaver? fireball their damned face. i put these evil monsters in the game specifically for the heroic players to have something to directly oppose. as a third layer to the safety announcements in session zero i make it plain that evil comes from a cultures history, religious beliefs or economic advantage unless it comes from a completely different altered mind state. i do not run racial morality traits in my games. there are outliers in every culture. in the same way that there are murderous humans, swindling elves and lying Aasimar in an otherwise law abiding metropolis there will be goblins suffering under the Tyrant lord's iron fist who dreams of leading her people to peace and freedom, or a drow who through accident of their birth is browbeaten and threatened with physical danger so much that their gentle heart bleeds for the people his Matriarch forces into the role of chattel. and those outliers on both sides will exist and be important. so i make clear i always interpret a book description to mean "the widespread culture of this races origins are as described, but may differ with individuals" personally i think having a bad guys minions be misinformed or manipulated into believing a bad morality is more interesting than just "Orcs are bad because their god who made them made them bad", because it opens up more stories. a cultist can be saved from their cult and have their mind freed, but those cursed to be evil by arbitrary circumstance of genealogy can only be stopped with strong opposition.
I don't see how it is so hard to grasp. Some people are will never learn to stop being villains through diplomacy. Some people only stop when use of force is applied against them. Let the heroic team put an end to the nefarious deeds of villain.
Hi, I just stumbled upon your video and found it interesting. I wanted to point out that there are currently more than 50 million slaves in the world TODAY. Slavery is not an issue that will just go away by deleting its mention in text and discourse or by softening language in a ttrg setting. I find that the types of role-playing games and stories that I enjoy and are engaged in are parallels to current and historic events.They give me a sense of "something at stake" beyond a simple pleasurable exercise in creativity. Fantasy or speculative fiction (and any art/gaming) is a way in which one can dialogue about issues endemic to humanity that isn't subject to the same social pressures or constraints of other social or institutional groups. Rpgs can offer an avenue to which players can confront the problem directly as characters and affect positive change, whereas in the real world, the issue is complicated by media, governments, economic policies, bureaucracy, and corruption that seeks to hide the issue in plain sight. Historically, speculative or fantasical fiction, comics and film media have been used to critique regimes, social mores, and fundamentalist thinking for over a centuryIncorporating topics like slavery or racial purity can be good starting points for intellectual and social discourse about these issues and lead to further involvement and activism by players. For sure, this can also lead to instances of conflict and sensitivity depending on how these are handled, but with proper framing I don't think their inclusion in the D&D catalogue is significantly problematic overall. My other point is that the phrase "it's just a game" should be replaced by " its just a fantasy dream problem simulator" 😉
In another one of our videos we made that exact point. Its tragic that people want to close their eyes, plug their ears and pretend that bad things are not happening in the world today.
@@thepickleddragon8590 it seems somewhat insulting to the character and intelligence of the player (or in Hasbro/WotC terms: consumer) base that we need censoring or dilution of concepts so that we may consume their material more palatably. D&D survived the Satanic Panic already.
The idea that race/species is not a deterministic, reductive proxy for good or evil makes for a better game. Yes, you can still have evil drow, but it's more interesting if that's a societal norm not a matter of genetics.
The concept of good and evil is interesting to consider. You have the evil of individuals who, for whatever reason, have gone down a dark path. Then you should consider cultural practices that lead entire populations down a path of evil. Whats interesting is that the concept of good and evil in d&d is defined by our western mindset. We consider slavery an evil but its still widely practiced in the world today. If we looked at it through those peoples eye, would we still consider it evil? If a person believes that slavery is just fine but is otherwise morally upstanding, would that one belief be enough for a detect evil spell to label them as evil?
@@thepickleddragon8590 We also didn't consider slavery an evil in the West for a long time. We justified it with our "good" religion telling us it was okay so societies evolve and devolve. Nazi Germany was Western, after all, and I don't think many of us now think the Germans are genetically evil. My homebrew world has the "good guys" just having given up slavery--basically Reconstruction Era--with plenty hoping for its return and many still fighting its aftereffects. It adds a dimension of "what is good" to the world.
Hmm... I'm'a have to disagree here. Isn't it interesting to have creatures with emotional lives truly different from humans? Consider lizard-folk... if they're anything like our world's crocodilians, they'd be shocked and aghast that we mammals actually *stick* *around* to tend to the children! Vampires are sapient creatures who are obligate predators on humanity... what's going on in their heads? I find these notions way more interesting than "Oh the duergar and drow just have bad social norms, we can totally talk them around to being good".
I sometimes wonder if the changes are just WotC going overboard with sensitivity and inclusivity because they're so afraid of hurting anyone, anyone at all, and they want to cover every single possible base they can think of. Which is ridiculous because there will always be someone who takes offense at something. There will always be someone who will read a word and clutch their pearls and collapse on their fainting couch because they've come across something that doesn't perfectly align with their worldview. These are the sorts of hyper-anxious people who will take any perceived slight against them as an attack, and will think that others will also be offended just as they are. How do you deal with someone like that? I guess if you're WotC you try to scrub every potentially problematic word and concept out of your game on the off chance that Kayleigh in Ohio gets the vapours when she reads that beholders are so full of themselves they think of everyone as less than. Honestly this is a massive topic that even two videos can't cover, especially when going into things like slavery and how - or even IF - it impacts players of colour versus white players. And that would change on a player-by-player basis, too.
well said and I couldn't agree more! This video was definitely a challenge to make. Because it encompasses so many different changes that our being made. It does seem like they are being so preemptive over any perceived slight that any single person could have, that it's hurting the game
No. They and other companies are not doing this out of an abundance of caution. They are doing it because their company is full of radicalized activists who think they're making the world a better place. In reality, they're doing more to promote bigotry by incessantly signaling to people that it's lurking around every corner. They would contribute more to the world by saving their outrage for actual displays of racism than by pushing lies that racism is behind everything and peacocking to no end about how wonderful they think themselves to be..
Well done. An important topic for a video. At 17:55 the lady hits the bulls-eye: censorship is about removing the offending information from the audience's mind. THAT IS IT. Removed from the community's consciousness, the community cannot address it, let alone fight it. Currently slavery IS an issue that good people do care about. There was an independent movie recently about exposing child trafficking that rubbed the "establishment" the wrong way. It throve nonetheless because we good people are still the majority. One more example; the faux outrage about sport mascots. These characters encourage their teams to success in competition and symbolize that success through striving and overcoming adversity. The NFL lost the Redskins whose symbol was a regal and masculine Native American chief, almost identical to the image on coveted U.S. Coins. That chief and the warriors he lead, who were called "Braves" in English were POSITIVE images of a culture. The propagandists didn't care about feelings, they want those beautiful images, erased. They DON'T want them celebrated. Wotc just eliminated half-elves!?! So miscegenation is bad now? I thought it was the epitome of racism to reject it. Recently a boy was defamed for his esprit decorps while dressed like a Native American warrior. He was accused of wearing "black face." The outlet had to retract of course. This erasure of Native American culture is sick and needs to stop. Kudos to you two for discussing this. They'll never get my books and may they stew knowing I still revel in my TSR AD&D books 40 years later.
There’s a vocal minority that is bullying these changes through for no good reason other than their own narcissism. It’s wild to me that people go along with this line of thought. Personally, I’m not buying any more WotC material. There are plenty of better alternatives.
I get not wanting to make assumptions about sapient beings based on who they are but I think the underdark works better as this unknowable terror from below. The abominations down there are not sapient beings but servitors or appendages of dark gods, an all-consuming darkness waiting to rise up and devour all things.
Does it ever bother you how much leeway and tolerance you give to people who not only will, not 'would', never give to you but actively work to subvert the game you purportedly love? More to the point, does it ever cross your mind that you should change your tactics for dealing with such people?
Just keep the game as it is and the DM can adjust the game for their players, maybe just some guidelines online for these types of people who are worried about non existent feelings of non existent races. World is going mad !!!
Love this, I think more people who think like we do are moving away from D&D and to games with more of an edge. I'm seriously debating on whether to buy the new rules set when it comes out. Is it going to be so watered down as to be banal? I run Pathfinder 2e and it's already getting to that point. You can have an empire of undead but you can't mention the word "slavery". I guess if we kill the peasant then raise him as forced labor that's not technically slavery.
I think that wotc will feel the pain in the long run. People will buy the new edition just out of curiosity. However, I think it will get bad for them as people reject the vanilla products they put out
The people pushing the buttons in the corporations neither know what they are doing nor do they care. Being inclusive would mean that they foster a community and vibe that tells people that playing a poc trans-fem knight of a holy order is okay, no matter what the setting says. If it conflicts, break the setting, that is how conflict and therefore role play ensues. Including players is hard, ripping the conflict out of the lore is easy.
Much like the satanic panic when it was easier to eliminate demons and devils for 2e they are trying to make themselves vanilla enough not to offend anyone.
I don't understand why activists would want to sanitize slavery and racism from fiction. (And D&D, like any TTRPG--is just interactive storytelling.) I would think that activists would want to tell stories about fighting racism or slavery. But instead, they seem to want people to not think about it at all. Like talking about slavery and racism is the same as promoting it. .
I believe it's more about control than anything else. All the previous generations have a cause to get behind. WW1, WW2, Vietnam, etc...today we are pampered in this country, far more than any other human in history. They need to work to find injustice and invent it when it doesn't exist.
10:56 similar to the point I made about slavery, evoking the memory of real world fascist groups for villains falls under a grey area. I do think this is probably fine. I would do it at my table. That said, for the company that publishes the game and makes these products, it makes sense that they would choose to be conservative in what they put in official supplements. A completely different company that makes a completely different game called Vampire the Masquerade does not shy away from adult themes in general and their RPG has a well earned M rating. Nevertheless, they had a scandal of their own when freelancers used a real world atrocity, in this case Chechnya's death camps for gay people, as fodder for content. The Sabbat are in charge of Chechnya in the world of darkness. This got the book pulled from the shelves as it went beneath even White Wolf/Paradox's standards. Back in the 90s they had a supplement for wraith about an influx of ghosts from the holocaust and a splatbook that demonized Roma people. WotC doesn't delve into that but they want to be conservative and not get anywhere close.
If you take away the monstrous and make everyone a shade of gray... aren't adventurers simply just a bunch of murderers. Conan would have been less interesting of a movie if everyone just talked out their issues because everyone had a point I miss my -2 Int -2 Cha +2 Str Half-orcs... those guys got it
There are some people who are DBs. There are also new people to the hobby some of them younger that have trouble navigating social interaction and learning how to be mature. Some of those people have trouble understanding some concepts unless they are specifically addressed. Stat Block is a generalization and there can be good exceptions to that creature might not occur to some people. I have seen awareness enlighten in a persons eyes when some of these things happen. They took it as this creature evil period. Races does not dictate a person behavior. Society does that more. I think some of that change is to make sure people don't carry over shallow one dimensional ideas into the real world.. Do you want one note villains that you never have to question what your doing is right fighting them or shades of gray where you might have to say, "am I doing the right thing."
In reading JRR Tolkien's letters, even fantasy's first great world-builder eventually had regrets about creating a natively evil race in the orcs. Professor Tolkien's Catholic beliefs required him to hold the hope for redemption for all intelligent beings and once this conflict occured to him he couldn't unthink it. If he had done a rewrite later in life we might have gotten a redemption arc for Shagrat with eventual retirement as a farmer in the Shire.
Redemption is an important theme in my games. I've had blue dragons turn good and gold dragons fall to evil. The alignment system for all its flaws creates opportunities for extraordinary stories.
"A slavers' den hidden in an orphanage" -> "A thieves' guild hidden in an orphanage" ...................I mean, if you want to STRETCH it, then sure... a "thief of freedom" is a slaver. But then we can stop saying murder and call it theft of life. The world wasn't an ideal place in the past and still isn't. Maybe it never will be. But we need the bad to be able to appreciate the good and the progress we do towards better. Otherwise we'll stop and think we're done. The Underdark was created for a reason. Has that reason, the need for that comparison, disappeared? I would say no. If we want Disney villains, we watch Disney and enjoy that for what it is. You don't need to mention a peep about the Underdark in a campaign you're playing if you don't like what's going on there. But that doesn't mean it has gone away. About the "slaver" vs "enslaver"; I think it's about weaker or softer langauge. Enslaver brings to mind being enslaved, it's something that was done to another. Slaver only brings to mind one thing; someone robbing another of their freedom. To give another, more everyday example I could say "I don't like the acidic flavour of pickled foods" and this is a softer language. A more acceptable langauge. But if I say "I'm a picky eater", people are going to feel I'm being childish or stubborn in a bad way. It's a harsher langauge. Using a softer or weaker language will take the brunt off of a sentence that needs to deal with topics the speaker or listener finds uncomfortable, making it less uncomfortable by comparison to a harsher language. Again, do we want a Villain or a Disney villain? Thank you for the video!
The argument for softer language is foolish. I've heard lots of people use the term unalived instead of killed. How long before unalived is the harsh language and we come up with some other term to express the same idea? I mean, we came up with the term homeless to replace bum or hobo but now homeless is taboo. Its an attempt to appear caring without actually having to do anything about the actual problem. You are right, we do need the bad to appreciate the good. It reminds me of when my parents took us to a food bank to help out on Thanksgiving. We got to see other people's realities up close.
Allowing someone to control your language to prevent you offending them gives them control of the tools you use to express yourself. By limiting the references you can make to the world around you, it changes your ability to conceptualize and properly communicate your thoughts. No. I will use the words I want. When I want. Exposure therapy. If it offends you, then you should hear it more. You should get over it. Not me.
For the drunk lady on RUclips, there is a huge difference between calling someone a slave versus being enslaved. “Nikole Hannah-Jones, said, "I think when we hear the word 'slave,' we think of slavery as being the essence of that person. But if you call someone an enslaved person, then it speaks to a condition. ... These people were not slaves. Someone chose to force them into the condition of slavery. And that language, to me, is very important, as is using the word 'enslaver' over 'slave owner' because these people didn't have a moral right to own another human being, even though the society allowed it." I hope this helps you to understand. 🤷🏻♂️
Alright big brother. Calm down. It represents a person who is enslaved. An enslaved person is currently a slave. When they are free? They are not a slave. See how that works? Hope you understand. 🤷
How about a new magic item, the +3 Newspaper of reprimanding. It automatically hits does 1 point of non lethal damage and causes the attacking monster to see the error of their ways and go and help little old ladies (sorry, vertically challenged members of a previous generation of any gender) cross the road.
Methinks the thing to remember is that WOTC is a business. Businesses don't make a lot of money if they get sued constantly by parent groups or whomever gets butthurt at the mere mention of the bad words that you alluded to. In today's litigious culture, I can't say I blame WOTC's skittish nature. I blame the parent groups, the religious nutcases and anyone looking to make a buck by going after a hobby. Everyone knows WOTC is a big company with a lot of money. Why struggle to do something that will earn you that kind of money rather than try to take it from someone else?
My opinion is that there design decisions have more to do with the general "sensitivity" movements than anything else. Much of what is being eliminated has been part of the lore since the beginning and was unchallenged until now.
WotC how to make everything lame, dull and stale. So much bs I cant stand 5th Ed never could I played 4th, 3.5, Pathfinder 1th Ed they were great fun no bs in the books and we got on with our story and our world. All I am going to say is Gatekeep everything, Look at movies mostly trash, tv shows are the same, comics are all but dead, video games are going the same way its the same people most of them never cared about these things but try to get into things and force their own BS in and hire people who think like them. Also the people who say they have "Trauma" and cant have anything in a game well it sounds like they should be in major therapy and not playing a game.
@@thepickleddragon8590 I have some of them myself but I live in Ireland and most are US based so delivery is often the same price or more than the product :-(
6:00 I consider including slavery within the game world as an act that villainous peoples do to be a grey are when it comes to good taste. (It is not a grey area when it comes to whether or not players or "good people" should do this, it is well within unacceptable.) This is a good reason for RPG consent forms to exist. They are controversial because some of the things on those forms honestly shouldn't be in any game but there are some grey areas and this is one of them. People in real life are and have been enslaved. It is the origin for racial disparities in America. It, along with the treatment of Native Americans is America's original sin. Some players may feel uncomfortable with it as some other villainous deed. For an understanding of why some villainous actions might be out of bounds, I will cite an SNL sketch about a group of cartoonishly evil mad scientist villains having a contest for "most evil invention." The first two mad scientists, presented a freeze ray and a shrink ray. These are standard villainous things. The third mad scientist presents " a child molesting robot." The others are disgusted. "What is wrong with you?" one says. "I thought we were supposed to do the evilest invention." Slavery can be seen in a similar light. For those of us unaffected, it is more like the shrink ray, cartoon villainy. For those with a family history of being enslaved, it might feel more like the child molesting robot.
No. Not at all. No one alive today has been enslaved. A family history of slavery? That’s all of us. It’s a game. No topic should be off limits. If you don’t like it, don’t play it. There are a lot of concepts that, if put in a game, would keep me from playing it, but I would never try to censor it and then go on to pull a Puritanical inquisition-style tirade against anyone involved. This isn’t the 1500s, enough with the Puritanism.
Just shows how butt hurt some people are. Good grief, they need to grow up and stop being a victim and being offended by everything. I have never seen any words in DND that would cause anyone to be offended. I mean really!?!?! Might as well turn DND into a pepe pig game.
Racial coding is a thing that exists. Just because something is a "fantasy race" does not mean that it is something based on the real-world culture or history or stereotypes about some real-world people. You can't simultaneously say that you are telling stories about "Heroes defeating slavery" as a justification for virtue in the game and then turn around and have your heroes commit genocide against a people who look suspiciously similar to a real-world people and call it "just fantasy".
It's a tough call here. People are *really* good at pattern-matching, to the point where if you see a stick out of the corner of your eye, your first reaction might be "SNAKE! PANIK!" If we see "stereotype X" applied to fantasy race Y, people will automatically think "Aha! They're making fun of real race Z, who also is accused of X".
No. Drow don’t look like real people. No person ever is jet black. No person lives deep underground in a spider worshipping society. With white hair and bright red eyes. In a fascist matriarchal society. Stop it. There is no real world comparison. Drows aren’t racially coded because they are not humans. Stop it.
Whose the racist? The person who accepts these imaginary game-pieces as written, or the person who looks at the description of an orc and goes "Holy shit, those sound just like ______ people!"?
Generally everyone that cries racism are usually the racist....it's what they always talk about, it's what they live and breath and when they fail they blame others instead of looking at themselves...
That's a really good point, I think it needs more attention.
I love the smell of progressive r@clsm in the morning 😂
Mindflayers = Mindhuggers
Intellect Devourers = Intellect Compulsive Snackers
Duergar = Short Statured Minimalists
Beholders = Ocular Gifted Individuals
Drow = Simply Misunderstood Elves
Myconids = Fun Guys
Umber Hulk = Plus Sized Beetle
...and they all got their reasons for being the way they are
Truth! 😂
What I'm asking myself is: If we can't have/handle "evil" things in fiction, how will we be able to understand, handle, cope and fight against it in real life? I want my drow to be evil, not misunderstood. I would also want them to be an evil society not just "born with it". Same with Ogres, Goblins, Kobolds and so on. There should be evil, ruthless, destructive societies to fight against.
I think the problem is the idea that they're *inherently* evil, yeah. But that's never been the case with the Drow. Drow are the way they are because their society is under the thumb of a goddess of evil and chaos who thinks she owns all of them - Drow who escape to the surface tend to end up pretty normal and well-adjusted, once they get used to not being in Lolth-sworn Drow society anymore.
The same is generally true for orcs, goblins, kobolds, etc. Orcs act the way they do because Gruumsh is awful and demands conquest and violence. The Goblinoids' pantheon was *literally* conquered by a god who wants to enslave their souls after they die.
But all of this varies based on setting, which might be one of the reasons they're removing it. The current "default setting" might be Forgotten Realms, but 5e has always emphasized their other settings as well, and (for example) Maglubiyet, the goblins' conqueror-god, doesn't exist in the Dragonlance setting. Dragonlance doesn't have orcs or drow *at all* and never has, though, being more concerned with doing its own thing.
Admittedly with Drow, their narrative purpose (people who should ideally want to escape their chaotic-evil society and get out from under the thumb of their goddess) has always conflicted with their *gameplay* purpose (enemies who are intelligent enough to use tactics the way the PCs do, without any of the OP abilities of extraplanar evils like devils, who you can still fight and kill and not have to worry about moral ambiguity for engaging in that sort of violence. That's part of why they had magic weapons that dissolved when brought back to the surface, for example, as part of their gameplay function of being intelligent, tactical monsters that the PCs can fight and kill as heroes without worrying about breaking the game).
The amount of otherwise intelligent people that have bought into the nonsense that fantasy racism equals real world racism is astounding. Alphastream is free to run games however he likes, but him and the people like him are turning wotc 5e into the most vanilla milk toast version of the game. WOTC has no business trying to preach morality to anyone.
Keep up the great work guys.
thank you so much!
I don't have problems with truly terrible, vile things (slavery, murder, devil-worship, whatever) existing in the game. The whole point of D&D is that we're the good guys, fighting against that kind of thing! If there are no slaves, heroes can't free them.
I introduced my boys to AD&D about 13 years ago when they were 5 and 7. The adventure was that a group of kobolds who lived in the city sewers stole a cookie recipe from the character's Auntie Mae, and it was up to the players, two very young children, to track down the kobolds and negotiate to get the recipe back so Auntie Mae could bake cookies for a birthday party. My boys reached an agreement with the kobolds that Auntie Mae would bake extra cookies to give to the kobolds if they'd return the recipe. It was a very "G" rated adventure with a few traps and puzzles to figure out, but nothing that caused any damage and there was definitely zero combat, unless you count the arm wrestling competition with a Lizard Man to gain access deeper into the sewer.
This adventure was designed for 2 children, but might be right on par with WotC's kinder, gentler crap they're putting out today for adults.
DnD introduced Drow as evil and almost immediately introduced exceptions to that, so it's been a think since the beginning that not all drow are evil.
If wotc actually paid attention to their own lore they would know this.
There's nobody left who worked on BG3, so there's definitely nobody left who remembers 1e@@Decado1628
There is Nilonim, an imprisoned neutral good dissident drow leader (with the hint that there is his band of drow rebels attempting to overthrow evil rule) in Gygax’s 1978 D3 The Vault of the Drow. So the creator of the D&D drow introduced the concept of good drow from the outset.
Right wingers are stupid. What can we say
yeah, they have a good aligned goddess in the drow pantheon.
I'm working on a TTRPG system (Built on Basic Fantasy, so it'll be open source as well) and the plan is to build a parallel cosmology and mythos to D&D's that reimagines the RPG tropes we love in a truly medieval fashion, and yes, the Undermourn will be a haven of depravity and madness and monsters will be truly monstrous. If you want classic adventures of high heroics, eldritch weirdness and good triumphing over evil, keep an eye on my stuff!
I just want them to not California my D&D 😢
On the slavery thing, don't forget that it's not just endentured servitude. There are sex slavers out there. We had a case some years ago where a local girl was found way up in Cincinnati tied up inside a U Haul being prepped to sell to some circle of perverts.
Yeah, the majority of the 46 million are women and children who are like trafficked
'indentured'
Please kick me. All best.
Were those girls there because of DnD?
When it comes to sanitizing language, I'm firmly in the late, great George Carlin's camp. All it does is remove the humanity and emotional impact from it and allow people to commit worse atrocities because the language makes it seem "not that bad".
Lets keep the underdark evil!!
agreed!
Nicely balanced, opinionated video without hyperbole, mud-slinging, or name-calling. How totally refreshing! I am now subscribed.
@@kirktate647 many thanks
It’s important to remember that science fiction and fantasy proliferated as literary genres largely on their ability to address real-world social issues without the baggage of history. Nobody is going to get “triggered” by slavery in the Underdark because they feel like they or their heritage is being attacked. If we take away all of the safe spaces for talking about these subjects, we’re just reinforcing ignorance. Kudos to you folks for calling it out!
Too true. My gut tells me that anyone hating an issue with these topics are doing so for performative reasons rather than true trauma. The latter folks likely have bigger fish to fry than worrying about the content of an rpg.
I find it difficult to take the 'sensitivity rewriters' seriously. Their purpose seems to be to use words that hint at the meaning, but don't directly address the meaning. I think this is harmful. I work in a field where I am constantly inundated with redirection of true meaning. While I do understand, to a point, their reasoning, I think they fall under the good intentions folk. And we know where that paved road leads. Keep up the good fight. Enjoyed the video.
The reason I have a problem with these changes is, whenever old D&D addressed anything like slavery etc, it was solely the domain of bad guys. None of that was endorsed by the old versions (what some players did is on them). That's what the characters were fighting against, and often the reason they were fighting at all, if they had backstories.
@@johntheherbalistg8756 this is so true
Like we said when we heard the horrible changes that came out in 2nd Ed under Lorraine Williams, "Oh well, I got all the old books."
Too true, and now with wotc eliminating print copies we won't even have to worry about new books!
@@thepickleddragon8590 And with the internet we don't even have to give WotC any money for the old books now as well. Go woke, go broke Hasbro.
When did WotC become the morality police? That was inevitable as soon as they moved to Seattle. Though to be fair, we saw this in earlier editions to appease the religious conservatives in the elimination of terms like demons and devils.
Next they'll want to get rid of Dungeon Master - "Master" is 'problematic' - and replace it with something like Dungeon Guide.
That has already begun with a push for Dungeon Host
@@thepickleddragon8590 wait, really? man, its a good thing i stopped playing that shitty game
@@comyuse9103 Yeah, it hasnt picked up a lot of traction yet but ive seen it used. Thats how all these things start though
About ten years ago I was told (I work in IT) that we no longer have "master-slave" architectures...
in my games part of my session zero is directly addressing problematic content.
i ted to go around the table and ask people about what are their hard and soft lines they just dont want to be part of the game, or dont want to directly come into contact with. usually i set my boundries of some really basic safety lines like no wierd stuff with kids and i dont want to tell a story with SA as a feature in focus, but i also let other people put their own foibles on the line, like i have a friend who cant deal with eye trauma detail, so im not going to be mean to my friend and have detailed descriptions of that in my game.
the second layer of session zero is a disclaimer. i make clear that i run a game where the heroes are heroic, or on a journey to become heroic, so i expect people to play someone who fits in that role, or who is going to going to roleplay stepping into that role. and part of the story is going to be a range of villians, and i will be telegraphing these evil doers who need stopping by having them do unforgivably evil thing. and you know the best way a fantasy hero can stop a slaver? fireball their damned face. i put these evil monsters in the game specifically for the heroic players to have something to directly oppose.
as a third layer to the safety announcements in session zero i make it plain that evil comes from a cultures history, religious beliefs or economic advantage unless it comes from a completely different altered mind state. i do not run racial morality traits in my games. there are outliers in every culture. in the same way that there are murderous humans, swindling elves and lying Aasimar in an otherwise law abiding metropolis there will be goblins suffering under the Tyrant lord's iron fist who dreams of leading her people to peace and freedom, or a drow who through accident of their birth is browbeaten and threatened with physical danger so much that their gentle heart bleeds for the people his Matriarch forces into the role of chattel. and those outliers on both sides will exist and be important. so i make clear i always interpret a book description to mean "the widespread culture of this races origins are as described, but may differ with individuals"
personally i think having a bad guys minions be misinformed or manipulated into believing a bad morality is more interesting than just "Orcs are bad because their god who made them made them bad", because it opens up more stories. a cultist can be saved from their cult and have their mind freed, but those cursed to be evil by arbitrary circumstance of genealogy can only be stopped with strong opposition.
Dang, it keeps looking less and less likely that Dark Sun is going to come back.
I'm pretty sure that under current management that will not happen
Corporate D&D is bland.
I don't see how it is so hard to grasp. Some people are will never learn to stop being villains through diplomacy. Some people only stop when use of force is applied against them. Let the heroic team put an end to the nefarious deeds of villain.
Hi, I just stumbled upon your video and found it interesting. I wanted to point out that there are currently more than 50 million slaves in the world TODAY. Slavery is not an issue that will just go away by deleting its mention in text and discourse or by softening language in a ttrg setting. I find that the types of role-playing games and stories that I enjoy and are engaged in are parallels to current and historic events.They give me a sense of "something at stake" beyond a simple pleasurable exercise in creativity. Fantasy or speculative fiction (and any art/gaming) is a way in which one can dialogue about issues endemic to humanity that isn't subject to the same social pressures or constraints of other social or institutional groups. Rpgs can offer an avenue to which players can confront the problem directly as characters and affect positive change, whereas in the real world, the issue is complicated by media, governments, economic policies, bureaucracy, and corruption that seeks to hide the issue in plain sight. Historically, speculative or fantasical fiction, comics and film media have been used to critique regimes, social mores, and fundamentalist thinking for over a centuryIncorporating topics like slavery or racial purity can be good starting points for intellectual and social discourse about these issues and lead to further involvement and activism by players. For sure, this can also lead to instances of conflict and sensitivity depending on how these are handled, but with proper framing I don't think their inclusion in the D&D catalogue is significantly problematic overall. My other point is that the phrase "it's just a game" should be replaced by " its just a fantasy dream problem simulator" 😉
In another one of our videos we made that exact point. Its tragic that people want to close their eyes, plug their ears and pretend that bad things are not happening in the world today.
@@thepickleddragon8590 it seems somewhat insulting to the character and intelligence of the player (or in Hasbro/WotC terms: consumer) base that we need censoring or dilution of concepts so that we may consume their material more palatably. D&D survived the Satanic Panic already.
The idea that race/species is not a deterministic, reductive proxy for good or evil makes for a better game. Yes, you can still have evil drow, but it's more interesting if that's a societal norm not a matter of genetics.
The concept of good and evil is interesting to consider. You have the evil of individuals who, for whatever reason, have gone down a dark path. Then you should consider cultural practices that lead entire populations down a path of evil. Whats interesting is that the concept of good and evil in d&d is defined by our western mindset. We consider slavery an evil but its still widely practiced in the world today. If we looked at it through those peoples eye, would we still consider it evil? If a person believes that slavery is just fine but is otherwise morally upstanding, would that one belief be enough for a detect evil spell to label them as evil?
@@thepickleddragon8590 We also didn't consider slavery an evil in the West for a long time. We justified it with our "good" religion telling us it was okay so societies evolve and devolve. Nazi Germany was Western, after all, and I don't think many of us now think the Germans are genetically evil. My homebrew world has the "good guys" just having given up slavery--basically Reconstruction Era--with plenty hoping for its return and many still fighting its aftereffects. It adds a dimension of "what is good" to the world.
Hmm... I'm'a have to disagree here. Isn't it interesting to have creatures with emotional lives truly different from humans? Consider lizard-folk... if they're anything like our world's crocodilians, they'd be shocked and aghast that we mammals actually *stick* *around* to tend to the children! Vampires are sapient creatures who are obligate predators on humanity... what's going on in their heads?
I find these notions way more interesting than "Oh the duergar and drow just have bad social norms, we can totally talk them around to being good".
I sometimes wonder if the changes are just WotC going overboard with sensitivity and inclusivity because they're so afraid of hurting anyone, anyone at all, and they want to cover every single possible base they can think of. Which is ridiculous because there will always be someone who takes offense at something. There will always be someone who will read a word and clutch their pearls and collapse on their fainting couch because they've come across something that doesn't perfectly align with their worldview. These are the sorts of hyper-anxious people who will take any perceived slight against them as an attack, and will think that others will also be offended just as they are. How do you deal with someone like that?
I guess if you're WotC you try to scrub every potentially problematic word and concept out of your game on the off chance that Kayleigh in Ohio gets the vapours when she reads that beholders are so full of themselves they think of everyone as less than.
Honestly this is a massive topic that even two videos can't cover, especially when going into things like slavery and how - or even IF - it impacts players of colour versus white players. And that would change on a player-by-player basis, too.
well said and I couldn't agree more! This video was definitely a challenge to make. Because it encompasses so many different changes that our being made.
It does seem like they are being so preemptive over any perceived slight that any single person could have, that it's hurting the game
No. They and other companies are not doing this out of an abundance of caution. They are doing it because their company is full of radicalized activists who think they're making the world a better place. In reality, they're doing more to promote bigotry by incessantly signaling to people that it's lurking around every corner. They would contribute more to the world by saving their outrage for actual displays of racism than by pushing lies that racism is behind everything and peacocking to no end about how wonderful they think themselves to be..
Well done. An important topic for a video. At 17:55 the lady hits the bulls-eye: censorship is about removing the offending information from the audience's mind. THAT IS IT. Removed from the community's consciousness, the community cannot address it, let alone fight it. Currently slavery IS an issue that good people do care about. There was an independent movie recently about exposing child trafficking that rubbed the "establishment" the wrong way. It throve nonetheless because we good people are still the majority. One more example; the faux outrage about sport mascots. These characters encourage their teams to success in competition and symbolize that success through striving and overcoming adversity. The NFL lost the Redskins whose symbol was a regal and masculine Native American chief, almost identical to the image on coveted U.S. Coins. That chief and the warriors he lead, who were called "Braves" in English were POSITIVE images of a culture. The propagandists didn't care about feelings, they want those beautiful images, erased. They DON'T want them celebrated. Wotc just eliminated half-elves!?! So miscegenation is bad now? I thought it was the epitome of racism to reject it. Recently a boy was defamed for his esprit decorps while dressed like a Native American warrior. He was accused of wearing "black face." The outlet had to retract of course. This erasure of Native American culture is sick and needs to stop. Kudos to you two for discussing this. They'll never get my books and may they stew knowing I still revel in my TSR AD&D books 40 years later.
There’s a vocal minority that is bullying these changes through for no good reason other than their own narcissism. It’s wild to me that people go along with this line of thought. Personally, I’m not buying any more WotC material. There are plenty of better alternatives.
Man, that is why I play where criticals kill my chars (i.e. Rolemaster). ICE stays out of this nonsense, thank Pelor.
My goodness! That is hard mode!
I'm offended! Ogre's are like Onions they have layers!
I get not wanting to make assumptions about sapient beings based on who they are but I think the underdark works better as this unknowable terror from below. The abominations down there are not sapient beings but servitors or appendages of dark gods, an all-consuming darkness waiting to rise up and devour all things.
Does it ever bother you how much leeway and tolerance you give to people who not only will, not 'would', never give to you but actively work to subvert the game you purportedly love? More to the point, does it ever cross your mind that you should change your tactics for dealing with such people?
Just keep the game as it is and the DM can adjust the game for their players, maybe just some guidelines online for these types of people who are worried about non existent feelings of non existent races. World is going mad !!!
In the interest of time, perhaps they could fill the Monster Manual with straight white guys and make everything else a good-aligned player character.
Love this, I think more people who think like we do are moving away from D&D and to games with more of an edge. I'm seriously debating on whether to buy the new rules set when it comes out. Is it going to be so watered down as to be banal? I run Pathfinder 2e and it's already getting to that point. You can have an empire of undead but you can't mention the word "slavery". I guess if we kill the peasant then raise him as forced labor that's not technically slavery.
I think that wotc will feel the pain in the long run. People will buy the new edition just out of curiosity. However, I think it will get bad for them as people reject the vanilla products they put out
The people pushing the buttons in the corporations neither know what they are doing nor do they care. Being inclusive would mean that they foster a community and vibe that tells people that playing a poc trans-fem knight of a holy order is okay, no matter what the setting says. If it conflicts, break the setting, that is how conflict and therefore role play ensues. Including players is hard, ripping the conflict out of the lore is easy.
Much like the satanic panic when it was easier to eliminate demons and devils for 2e they are trying to make themselves vanilla enough not to offend anyone.
All of the changes to lore is why I'm glad I have first printings. Not making the lore from those disappear.
Too true, we are working on a series of videos where we highlight our favorite books from older editions.
New subscriber here. I like what you have to say. Can't wait to watch more.
Gonna be recording tomorrow. Been busy with projects! Big news coming soon!
I don't understand why activists would want to sanitize slavery and racism from fiction. (And D&D, like any TTRPG--is just interactive storytelling.) I would think that activists would want to tell stories about fighting racism or slavery. But instead, they seem to want people to not think about it at all. Like talking about slavery and racism is the same as promoting it. .
I believe it's more about control than anything else. All the previous generations have a cause to get behind. WW1, WW2, Vietnam, etc...today we are pampered in this country, far more than any other human in history. They need to work to find injustice and invent it when it doesn't exist.
10:56 similar to the point I made about slavery, evoking the memory of real world fascist groups for villains falls under a grey area. I do think this is probably fine. I would do it at my table. That said, for the company that publishes the game and makes these products, it makes sense that they would choose to be conservative in what they put in official supplements.
A completely different company that makes a completely different game called Vampire the Masquerade does not shy away from adult themes in general and their RPG has a well earned M rating. Nevertheless, they had a scandal of their own when freelancers used a real world atrocity, in this case Chechnya's death camps for gay people, as fodder for content. The Sabbat are in charge of Chechnya in the world of darkness. This got the book pulled from the shelves as it went beneath even White Wolf/Paradox's standards. Back in the 90s they had a supplement for wraith about an influx of ghosts from the holocaust and a splatbook that demonized Roma people. WotC doesn't delve into that but they want to be conservative and not get anywhere close.
If you take away the monstrous and make everyone a shade of gray... aren't adventurers simply just a bunch of murderers. Conan would have been less interesting of a movie if everyone just talked out their issues because everyone had a point
I miss my -2 Int -2 Cha +2 Str Half-orcs... those guys got it
I dislike when they make the text less understandable in their efforts to sanitize it.
There are some people who are DBs. There are also new people to the hobby some of them younger that have trouble navigating social interaction and learning how to be mature. Some of those people have trouble understanding some concepts unless they are specifically addressed. Stat Block is a generalization and there can be good exceptions to that creature might not occur to some people. I have seen awareness enlighten in a persons eyes when some of these things happen. They took it as this creature evil period. Races does not dictate a person behavior. Society does that more. I think some of that change is to make sure people don't carry over shallow one dimensional ideas into the real world.. Do you want one note villains that you never have to question what your doing is right fighting them or shades of gray where you might have to say, "am I doing the right thing."
🙌
In reading JRR Tolkien's letters, even fantasy's first great world-builder eventually had regrets about creating a natively evil race in the orcs. Professor Tolkien's Catholic beliefs required him to hold the hope for redemption for all intelligent beings and once this conflict occured to him he couldn't unthink it. If he had done a rewrite later in life we might have gotten a redemption arc for Shagrat with eventual retirement as a farmer in the Shire.
Redemption is an important theme in my games. I've had blue dragons turn good and gold dragons fall to evil. The alignment system for all its flaws creates opportunities for extraordinary stories.
"A slavers' den hidden in an orphanage" -> "A thieves' guild hidden in an orphanage"
...................I mean, if you want to STRETCH it, then sure... a "thief of freedom" is a slaver. But then we can stop saying murder and call it theft of life.
The world wasn't an ideal place in the past and still isn't. Maybe it never will be. But we need the bad to be able to appreciate the good and the progress we do towards better. Otherwise we'll stop and think we're done. The Underdark was created for a reason. Has that reason, the need for that comparison, disappeared? I would say no. If we want Disney villains, we watch Disney and enjoy that for what it is. You don't need to mention a peep about the Underdark in a campaign you're playing if you don't like what's going on there. But that doesn't mean it has gone away.
About the "slaver" vs "enslaver"; I think it's about weaker or softer langauge. Enslaver brings to mind being enslaved, it's something that was done to another. Slaver only brings to mind one thing; someone robbing another of their freedom. To give another, more everyday example I could say "I don't like the acidic flavour of pickled foods" and this is a softer language. A more acceptable langauge. But if I say "I'm a picky eater", people are going to feel I'm being childish or stubborn in a bad way. It's a harsher langauge. Using a softer or weaker language will take the brunt off of a sentence that needs to deal with topics the speaker or listener finds uncomfortable, making it less uncomfortable by comparison to a harsher language. Again, do we want a Villain or a Disney villain?
Thank you for the video!
The argument for softer language is foolish. I've heard lots of people use the term unalived instead of killed. How long before unalived is the harsh language and we come up with some other term to express the same idea? I mean, we came up with the term homeless to replace bum or hobo but now homeless is taboo. Its an attempt to appear caring without actually having to do anything about the actual problem.
You are right, we do need the bad to appreciate the good. It reminds me of when my parents took us to a food bank to help out on Thanksgiving. We got to see other people's realities up close.
Allowing someone to control your language to prevent you offending them gives them control of the tools you use to express yourself. By limiting the references you can make to the world around you, it changes your ability to conceptualize and properly communicate your thoughts. No. I will use the words I want. When I want. Exposure therapy. If it offends you, then you should hear it more. You should get over it. Not me.
For the drunk lady on RUclips, there is a huge difference between calling someone a slave versus being enslaved.
“Nikole Hannah-Jones, said, "I think when we hear the word 'slave,' we think of slavery as being the essence of that person. But if you call someone an enslaved person, then it speaks to a condition. ... These people were not slaves. Someone chose to force them into the condition of slavery. And that language, to me, is very important, as is using the word 'enslaver' over 'slave owner' because these people didn't have a moral right to own another human being, even though the society allowed it."
I hope this helps you to understand. 🤷🏻♂️
Alright big brother. Calm down. It represents a person who is enslaved. An enslaved person is currently a slave. When they are free? They are not a slave. See how that works? Hope you understand.
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DnD 5e has become the jello of tabletop....its safe and boring.😢
Maybe they need to forbid violence in dnd altogether. That would fix everything.
How about a new magic item, the +3 Newspaper of reprimanding. It automatically hits does 1 point of non lethal damage and causes the attacking monster to see the error of their ways and go and help little old ladies (sorry, vertically challenged members of a previous generation of any gender) cross the road.
I'm glad to see more depth added to the villains than just "Bad monster bad". I don't know how they reasoned that end but I'm not really concerned.
DEI corruption of our game is the worse.
Doing this inheriently makes the game less interesting. These arn't serious people and should be entirely ignored.
Methinks the thing to remember is that WOTC is a business. Businesses don't make a lot of money if they get sued constantly by parent groups or whomever gets butthurt at the mere mention of the bad words that you alluded to. In today's litigious culture, I can't say I blame WOTC's skittish nature. I blame the parent groups, the religious nutcases and anyone looking to make a buck by going after a hobby. Everyone knows WOTC is a big company with a lot of money. Why struggle to do something that will earn you that kind of money rather than try to take it from someone else?
My opinion is that there design decisions have more to do with the general "sensitivity" movements than anything else. Much of what is being eliminated has been part of the lore since the beginning and was unchallenged until now.
WotC how to make everything lame, dull and stale. So much bs I cant stand 5th Ed never could I played 4th, 3.5, Pathfinder 1th Ed they were great fun no bs in the books and we got on with our story and our world. All I am going to say is Gatekeep everything, Look at movies mostly trash, tv shows are the same, comics are all but dead, video games are going the same way its the same people most of them never cared about these things but try to get into things and force their own BS in and hire people who think like them. Also the people who say they have "Trauma" and cant have anything in a game well it sounds like they should be in major therapy and not playing a game.
Don't write off comics yet! The indy scene is putting out some amazing stories
@@thepickleddragon8590 I have some of them myself but I live in Ireland and most are US based so delivery is often the same price or more than the product :-(
@@yagsipcc287 yeah that hurts but sometimes worth it
6:00 I consider including slavery within the game world as an act that villainous peoples do to be a grey are when it comes to good taste. (It is not a grey area when it comes to whether or not players or "good people" should do this, it is well within unacceptable.) This is a good reason for RPG consent forms to exist. They are controversial because some of the things on those forms honestly shouldn't be in any game but there are some grey areas and this is one of them. People in real life are and have been enslaved. It is the origin for racial disparities in America. It, along with the treatment of Native Americans is America's original sin. Some players may feel uncomfortable with it as some other villainous deed.
For an understanding of why some villainous actions might be out of bounds, I will cite an SNL sketch about a group of cartoonishly evil mad scientist villains having a contest for "most evil invention." The first two mad scientists, presented a freeze ray and a shrink ray. These are standard villainous things. The third mad scientist presents " a child molesting robot." The others are disgusted. "What is wrong with you?" one says. "I thought we were supposed to do the evilest invention."
Slavery can be seen in a similar light. For those of us unaffected, it is more like the shrink ray, cartoon villainy. For those with a family history of being enslaved, it might feel more like the child molesting robot.
No. Not at all. No one alive today has been enslaved. A family history of slavery? That’s all of us. It’s a game. No topic should be off limits. If you don’t like it, don’t play it. There are a lot of concepts that, if put in a game, would keep me from playing it, but I would never try to censor it and then go on to pull a Puritanical inquisition-style tirade against anyone involved.
This isn’t the 1500s, enough with the Puritanism.
Just shows how butt hurt some people are. Good grief, they need to grow up and stop being a victim and being offended by everything. I have never seen any words in DND that would cause anyone to be offended. I mean really!?!?! Might as well turn DND into a pepe pig game.
Racial coding is a thing that exists. Just because something is a "fantasy race" does not mean that it is something based on the real-world culture or history or stereotypes about some real-world people.
You can't simultaneously say that you are telling stories about "Heroes defeating slavery" as a justification for virtue in the game and then turn around and have your heroes commit genocide against a people who look suspiciously similar to a real-world people and call it "just fantasy".
It's a tough call here. People are *really* good at pattern-matching, to the point where if you see a stick out of the corner of your eye, your first reaction might be "SNAKE! PANIK!" If we see "stereotype X" applied to fantasy race Y, people will automatically think "Aha! They're making fun of real race Z, who also is accused of X".
No. Drow don’t look like real people. No person ever is jet black. No person lives deep underground in a spider worshipping society. With white hair and bright red eyes. In a fascist matriarchal society. Stop it. There is no real world comparison. Drows aren’t racially coded because they are not humans. Stop it.
None of the changes WotC made after they fired Mearls has made the game bland pablum with zero nutritional value.