are half-elves racist? D&D and WOTC thinks so
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- Опубликовано: 17 окт 2024
- MY PATREON: / dicequeendi
at the D&D summit wotc went over several plans for the future of dungeons & dragons, including the removal of half-elves and half-orcs from future editions!
My new editor!: / fobiwa
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As a half Hispanic half Caucasian person... I'm glad to hear my very existence is racist.
Right there with you
That's critical race theory for you. They actually believe and teach this stuff now.
I'm not sure that's the issue. The issue is really this: Suppose you weren't allowed to include the "half Caucasian" part in your self-identification, because it was deemed "unnecessary" -- because "Caucasian" doesn't need to be stated because it's the dominant norm that everyone already presumes ("of *course* the other half is White... what else could it possibly be, after all?"). The only way you would need to be identified is by the half of your identity that is non-White -- the "other," the "different" part. That's what's "inherently racist": WOTC originally kinda built "human supremacy" ideology into the game rules when they established the half-elf and half-orc races. They're trying now to open up space for a whole spectrum of multiracial PC identities, rather than have just two that are identified explicitly by their "non-Humanness."
Literally the opposite of what is being said. The "racist" part of traditional "Half-whatever" races in D&D is that the other half HAD TO BE HUMAN BY RULE. And the use of the term "Half-whatever" as a full description was based on that rule. The very fact that you said "half Hispanic" and "half Caucasian", because both are relevant is what WOTC is saying should be the new rules of the game.
@@JCPRuckus then why not just rename the Half-Elf and Half-Orc options? Why prop up the skin suit system for race mixing as a bandage?
Man, I'm Half-Asian so seeing WOTC/Hasbro erase the half-species is kind of fucked up to me. Like, if you're half-anything you're treated like you don't exist on both sides as is. Just let us have this one thing. I had the most fun playing half-elves and half-orcs because I got to have a dumb fantasy version of my life experience baked into my character's backstory.
This... I'm mixed race, and being so doesn't make you a bridge between your two cultures... it makes you of a completely new culture that is seen as an outsider by both.
What seems to be confusing for wotc stans, is it's not that we feel like our ethnicity is a 1 to 1 for a fantasy race, but the cultural bridge that is mixed is perfectly explored by Half-Elf and Half-Orc. Depending on the setting, and working with your DM there's many wonderful and cathartic character arcs to explore.
It's the weird "beneficially racist" take far leftists have where they horse shoe around to the Klan, where a half white half Asian for example is NOT allowed to embrace both sides, they get to be Asian and that's it
Except that they're not erasing it -- they're expanding it to a multitude of different choices and eliminating "human supremacy," if that makes sense.
Here's the analogy: Imagine a world where Asian people could only ever have kids with two choices: other Asians or White people. That's it. Any other possibility is not just culturally taboo, but literally impossible in the world. That's what WOTC did with half-elves and half-orcs. They constructed these two races as "variants of humans" rather than the product of two equal races (otherwise they'd be called half-elf/half-human... but they aren't). Currently you can't have a half-elf-half-aasimar or a half-dwarf-half-gnome in the game RAW. That's what's fucked up.
You literally don't understand the rule change. You aren't just half Asian. You're half something else to. All WOTC is saying is that it would be racist for people to assume what the other half is (which the old rules did by forcing the second half of any "Half-whatever" to be human). This rule change literally opens up more mixed rsce/species than ever before. The exact opposite of WOTC thinking "mixed people shouldn't exist".
Was wary when people were getting lippy about orcs and drow. I dropped out entirely when they said demons didn't have to be evil aligned. Saw exactly where this was going.
Drow lore does have some bits I can understand why people have issues with. While Wizards has downplayed it since they've taken over the brand from TSR, the original origin of the drow was that Corellon cursed them with black skin so that people would know they were evil. I don't think the authors intended anything racist when they wrote that but I do think it might not be the best idea to something that real world racists used to justify slavery in your escapist fantasy game.
There was also some old art of some of the orc sub-types that were very stereotypical "tribal". Granted, most of this shit was in the 90's and before, but Wizards still actively sells all their old products.
There’s nothing the far left love more than the normalisation of evil behaviour and the portrayal of criminals and evil-doers as victims. I guess that’s so they can identify with them more.
@@thecthuloser876 That may have been how the Drow got dark skin back in the day. The updated material I read before all this most recent sensitivity BS started coming up was that the dark elves were always black skinned, and they were cursed to be sensitive to sunlight.
@@thecthuloser876 Well, the original origin would be Nordo-Germanic mythology. Though it is debated that passages about Dokkalfar (dark elves) were actually about dwarves. Live underground, are the opposite of the Ljosalfar (light elves) in appearance and behavior... which could be taken to mean dwarves being shorter, broader, and having a more dour demeanor and orderliness in comparison to the elves being capricious and more outgoing. But at least one passage described them as having skin dark as pitch which is where Gygax probably got the idea.
The turning them pitch black sounds a lot like some theories on the Biblical Mark of Cain so I can see it being an issue as some people... well, used that idea to make certain assumptions about the lineages of certain people. But honestly reading about Cain's lineage in Genesis they were artists and craftsmen and God specifically said killing someone for having Cain's mark (which is never specified as hereditary anyway) would bring God's wrath down on them seven fold more harshly than what was put on Cain.
Also there isn't a race of people on the face of the earth with actual pitch black skin. Or dark blue or dark purple, whatever color the drow are this week.
This stuff fascinates me, it is a shame it has became so politized and people get so sensitive about it.
You know, demons like Fall-From-Grace (look her up) existed since 2nd edition.
But they are the exception NOT THE RULE.
That said, attempting to change a 50 years old lore, is misguided at best; outright idiotic at worst.
Man, you can almost feel the dudes in suits around a table energy behind this decision.
The CEO of Wizards of the Coast is Cynthia Williams. Men in suits wouldn't care.
@@ClockworkGearhead exactly, this is diversity hire energy and fake inclusion officer talk for sure.
It's not. It's more of a rainbow hair, coffee table at Starbucks, sociology degrees, type of decision. Suits don't care about this sort of thing.
Dudes in suits? Is that what we're calling white women now?
@@ClockworkGearhead its a turn of phrase, its a corporate decision to try to make money.
Going from races to species and getting ride of 'half' seems an awfully lot like demanding racial purity to me.
That would put a tear in ol Grand Wizards eye...
Grand Wizards of the Coast
The new rules literally allow more race/species mixing than ever. The "Half-" issue is purely about naming conventions. It's literally the opposite of what you're saying it is.
@@JCPRuckus then why not just rename the options with the word Half? Also if you're referring to the Skin Suit system, that's offering no new options to players, just all the old ones with cosmetic options.
Nothing has limited players from having unique cosmetics for how their character appears visually, "Flavor is Free" has predated the wotc purchase of D&D.
Horse shoe theory is never wrong.
*_"PURE-BLOODS ONLY!!!"_*
*_"NO HALF-BLOODS ALLOWED!!!"_*
Voldemort's evil Deatheaters
Got to love that in their "attempt" to not be racist, their mechanics essentially reflect "One-drop rule" mentality. I see now, Grand Wizards of the Coast wants to include Southern ideologies, Roll Tide.
Honestly I think the WOTC staff (at least the ones making the calls) fully do believe in the one drop rule. You have to be in one group or another. There is no fusion of two groups outside of their sanitized half-race rules which are fundamentally still one race or another
To go armchair psychologist and deeper on how I think the WOTC staff thinks, you're either an oppressor or a victim. There is no gray. And that imo leads to as TVTropes calls it, black and white insanity
I'm gonna be really sad that they're probably never going to have another half-orc or Half-elf in their books ever again. I hope they just rename those half-races as their own race "so wide-spread they are their fully independent race now" but I won't hold me breath
Yeah, the current CEO of Wizards of the Coast is Cynthia Williams, and she's an Oxford graduate.
In your attempt to sound progressive, you just generalized and entire swath of people from the south.
Great job. You should apply to work for her.
@@ClockworkGearhead I'm from Alabama, touch grass
@@ClockworkGearhead You sad nothing that changes anything and ended your statement with nonsense that changes nothing
@@rmjohn12 Alabama is like 40% non-white minority. States in the south statistically range from 65% to 50%. The north states are predominately white.
Which states in the south are overwhelming racist, exactly?
1. Sensitivity Readers exist to find problems with the material being presented. If they find no problems, does the company need them? If they find a problem, then they've justified their existence.
2. There is nothing inherently racist about two people of different lineages loving each other, overcoming cultural boundaries and having children. It is the polar opposite of racism.
3. Wizards of the Coast finds the opposite of racism offensive. They want to deny that intermingling, and segregate people based on race.
Except the problem is that much like Unions, Sensitivity Readers will make shit up to justify their paycheck.
@@KageRyuu6 I mean the other angle is just not having them. And look at what happened last time we got racist skin flap monkeys So I guess the issue is you have to have sensitivity readers that are good at their job
But if corporations don't tell us that our existence is a sin and abomination upon this world, who will?
Meanwhile, in my last Fantasy Craft campaign we had a Saurian (lizardfolk) of an alligator subspecies who was also a descendant of dwarves with dragon blood, so he was half saurian, three eights dwarf and one eight demon.
Ah, the good ol' dragon-dwarf of devilish inclination.
Classic maneuver.
I think Tanis and RIverwiind had this conversation in Dragons of Autumn Twilight where Riverwind asked why they called Tanis Half-elf instead of Half-man. And Tanis told him told him being called Half-man implied that he was less than a whole person. And that series showed Tanis's struggle with being between two worlds and how he was trying to be the best person he could regardless of his birth.
This. It was a narrative opportunity and now wotc wants to suppress that for, literally who? The non existent modern audience?
This is a good example of a cultural Idiom, where in some settings it may not hit the same as it does for Tanis. A big issue I have is all the modern idioms thst are being pushed unto fantasy races and cultures is purging a lot of the hand crafted world building that's been going on for decades.
If the term was all that was problematic, then all it needed was a change, if they sincerely believed having a racist term for a player option is grounds for removal, than Teifling and Halfling should have been removed.
But they didn't remove Halfling, they didn't remove any other mixed race, just the ones with Half blatantly in the name.
The Skin Suit System doesn't preserve any semblance of either removed player option. It also doesn't add anything new that hasn't been considered part of the 5e experience since "Flavor is Free"
"I don't need some corpo to tell me how to identify, I have plenty of people on twitter trying to do that instead" Holy crap, with that you earned a sub.
That fucking settles it. From now on I’m only playing mongrelfolk. Half-everything.
I love how WOTC makes the most out of touch changes yet they are convinced everyone loved that change and act like they just saved the franchise.
WOTC is ran by a bunch of reddit-level narcissists
Every good writer left for Pathfinder or is dead/moved on. Dnd died in 3e.
I've always liked the idea of the "half" character choices because as someone who is American and Italian via heritage but has lived in Australia most of her life, it is something I can resonate with. The idea of not belonging to any one culture and feeling simultaneously part of and excluded from all of them whenever it's convenient for others. By removing mixed character options it inherently is limiting those kinds of stories which I think sucks as there's so much to explore in a fantasy setting where those differences are often more pronounced and make for more interesting narratives. Does the character embrace their mixed heritage? Do they face adversity and overcome it? Do they scorn their heritage and try to ignore one part of it out of fear, hatred, or conditioning by those around them? Do they take advantage of the benefits their heritage provides them? Are they estranged from part of their heritage due to being raised in the culture of only one of them? There's so many emotions and challenges that these characters can face that often reflect real life struggles by those who have a mixed heritage that I think makes it worth keeping them around.
If they really want to be pedantic about it, they could simply change the name to elf-kin or orc-kin like another commenter on this video suggested and make it so that a relative slightly further up the tree could have influenced their heritage as well, e.g. grandfather. But removing the potential for these stories by excluding these character options from future prints of books doesn't seem like the way to go about it to me.
It's not like nearly *everyone* isn't going to be ignoring this stupid new rule at their tables. Personally, I'm still on D&D 3.5 / Pathfinder 1E so this is just reinforcing my decision to skip all this new junk.
This is a great comment, there's so much good for storytelling (and representation) from playing a mixed race/species.
The fact they ignore other mixed PC options, or even terms for a race that are probably more racist (like Halfling) shows just how tone deaf this attempt to fix D&D is.
I noticed they only targeted those that almost exclusively are Half-Human. Halfling Stouts (half Halfling/Dwarf) seem to still be in. Orog (which in the old days was half Orc/ Ogre) are still in. And Ogrillon (half ogre/ other) is still a thing as far as I can tell.
It makes me wonder if there was a half orc/ elf player race would they have gotten rid of it as well?
@@davidtherwhanger6795 Quite simply, I don't think the people that make these decision know their material very well, or else many races would be on the chopping block. I don't think they thought out the ramifications of a change like that beyond the virtue signalling they could do with it.
Also.. aren't sorcerers supposed to be dragon-blooded, too, or did that change? That's a whole class of "half"s to deal with.
I'm not sure you actually read the UA on how they are changing things up? They are **absolutely not** eliminating mixed-race characters -- they are radically expanding them by enabling players to select traits and attributes from any possible character races. The custom origin option in Tasha's set the stage for this change. The fact that you said "the fact that they ignored other mixed PC options" when they objectively did not (they actually are fixing the 5e status quo that does that) might suggest that you might be basing your opinion on the internet backlash and not on the actual proposed rule changes in the UA?
Now seriously, I think everyone who knows the Dragon Lance books thought about Tanis, the half elf. Great character with a tragic past, but not for that is a lame gary stu. Every-one.
Elrond of Rivendell says hi!
Lol. I was just telling this to my buddy who is new to d&d and fantasy. Dragonlance is great without Tanis.
I just wish for once, SOMEONE would get up in front of them in these 'community meetings' and ask them, (as though they'd give a straight answer) just exactly WHY any of these changes are necessary and what/who told them so in the first place.
Literally this is the same as the orc nonsense before, and it's why I'm not going back to modern d&d. The inclusion initiative is annoying and something I'm personally sick of, because it's killing story hooks. We had this rule back in the day that covered ALL of it.. called 'the DM can decide what's appropriate or house rule such things as needed for their table's preferences'.
Evil races already didn't have to be evil with DM consult. Beyond that, who the hell is 'so uncomfortable' with half races? Like.. if you can't stomach that concept... How the hell do you get through daily life? You must just cry every single day in your bedroom or something.
You are going to play like they want, or you are not going to play at all! Your WoTC overlords know whats best for you and your make believe RPG worlds! They have sensitivity readers who censor out all the bad nasty offensive stuff for you! Please subscribe to one DnD btw so we can chop up the game into mini DLCs and nickel and dime you for your brand loyality!
@@riptors9777 "The real secret we can't let them (the DM's) know is that they don't need us"
-Gary "Thanks for inventing gaming as we know it" Gygax
i actually play elves a lot and they are highly represented in japanese anime that emulates western fantasy, heck even legend of zelda hylians have classic elf-like features though seem to have human lifespans. though elves tend to get the short end of the stick with memes about fantasy racism, baalbuddy and anything derived from warhammer.
What I personally don't understand is this: who the heck is asking for that change? Who, seriously, has been pushing to remove half races?
Absolutely ridiculous.
Sensitivity readers. As others have said, they're being paid to find things "offensive". And so, they always will.
@@nnickplays9713 which is probably why only Half-Elf and Half-Orc are targeted, and not Teifling, Aasimar, or Genasi. Pretty sure the word Teifling is 'actually' a racist term in most settings, but these changes were never in good faith.
Gotta love it when a corporation is like "let's try being less offensive" and end up offending everybody because they are so non self aware that they don't know how to get dressed in the morning without a PR person advising them who themselves are so out of touch with what the average person who diddint go to collage is thinking that they might as well be carnival fortune tellers with expensive degrees XD
its the same as saying being born half black or half hispanic is racist. they dont see the progress of love transcending lineage.
As a fellow biracial person, I also always resonated with half-elves as I've experienced forms of racism from both sides of my family towards the other. Getting rid of them feels more like erasure in order to prevent the possibility of controversy rather than anything actually brought up as a legitimate concern.
Agreed. I'm italian/Nigerian and have felt that sting. Grabted I'm still happy and living my life. It does have it's rough moments. I think they went full racist trying to be preemptive because crazy people see our existence as racism
Except that they're not erasing it -- they're expanding it to a multitude of different choices and eliminating "human supremacy," if that makes sense.
Here's the analogy, referencing Xeno's reply on your comment: Imagine a world where Nigerian people could only ever have kids with two choices: other Nigerians or White people. That's it. Any other possibility is not just culturally taboo, but literally impossible in the world. That's what WOTC did with half-elves and half-orcs. They constructed these two races as "variants of humans" rather than the product of two equal races (otherwise they'd be called half-elf/half-human... but they aren't).
The racist part is *not* the part acknowledging elven or orcish heritage -- the racist part is (a) building in the assumption that the only other race they can have offspring with is humans into the game rules themselves, because they are the "normal" race, and (b) not permitting other combinations of races in RAW. They are fixing that to make all sorts of combos possible. I can't understand how this is so hard for people to grasp.
halflings are just a term they created because they could not use hobbit. Now I find it weird they are keeping the half-devils(tieflings), the half-angels(aasimar), the half-dragons(dragonborn), and the half genies(genasi).
That's the part of all this that comes out as hollow. They only took out the ones with Half in the name, but if being called a half was such a huge deal, they could have kept them in and just rebranded them.
The term halfling actually appears in Lord of the rings. It's how the people of Gondor refer to hobbits. but unlike Hobbit, the Tolkien estate didn't have IP protection on Halfling so that's the term TSR could get away with.
My very first session in a DnD campaign was just last week and I'm a half elf that is best frenemies with a half orc that has the mentality of Earth's Mightiest Heroes version of Hulk, and none of us are offended by being called "half race". People are weird.
I just don't get why they feel the need to insert their politics in a fantasy game that really isn't up to them to create since they obviously don't play it.
To be more honest its the word half they objected to not species cross breeding which they have rules for that allow for Dwarf/Goliath mixing, its just like 95% fluff.
Exactly -- because RAW it mandates that the other half is always and can only be human, and that the races are defined by what makes them "different" from the norm.
As a biracial man myself, I like the Half-Orc race myself. I've been speaking up about this because it's bad enough there isn't any Half-Orc protagonists in the novels, nor any Half-Orc content anywhere. I'd have to go to Blizzard for Half-Orc content through WoW.
Segregation anybody? This reminds me of Pathfinder. Tieflings are banned in Pathfinder from time to time. When that happens the best they can offer is a Half-Orc with the Infernal Blood feat.
The D&D apocalypse is coming! Grab your books before they get censored. Get to the bunkers! True D&D is being forced underground! That's my take anyway.
I hope it does get pushed back to the margins of society.
I got into tabletop gaming in the mid 90's at the end of the Satanic Panic and the "community" was much healthier with richer games since normies weren't dumbing everything down.
If the last decade in gaming has taught me anything, it is that we need to support the gatekeepers because they were the quality control.
@@UltraDonny5000 Hate to say it, but the gatekeepers have turned. This is the company virtue signaling to the woke crowd and sending the wrong message. The ship is sinking. Time to stockpile the books and go underground.
If you're getting offended by races in D&D, this isn't the game for you. D&D is an escape into an alternate world and the only reason taken should be a thing you're worried about is if it's a setting specific mechanic ("these villagers don't take kindly to half elves because they believe that they're a result of elves bewitching their women.")
I've seen a lot of cringe inducing stupid of creators trying to force their political or social views into the D&D space and that crap won't fly at my table. The only race, sexuality, or political mindset I care about is your character's.
is this directed at me? XD cause I'm not. I'm criticizing wotc going off and stating half-races as racist constructions and how their supposed developments are lackluster
wait dose this mean my dwarf hafling worlock or the Half wizards for short is off the table ?
IMHO disparitys and views from fantasy races/species do not apply to real world problems or issues
"oh my god how can you say we are no the same!?"
-My brother in Lathander you are half horse and I can literaly breath underwater, *We are not the same* _And thats a good thing_
While I typically dislike the overall approach that Wizards is taking here; the Dwarf in me is excited to hear there'll be significantly less Elf and Orc blood running around in the near future.
It's quite the pickle....
Nah.. the thing that will change is that you will have orcs with elf stats and elfs with orc stats running around since you can take the statblock of one species but the looks of the other. Wich i guess in dwarfen eyes would be even worse XD
Species isn't an inaccurate term, I feel, at least for some of them - like I feel confident suggesting that tabaxi and lizardfolk are different species from each other - and it can be justified as an in-universe misuse of the term (like not everyone in real life is gonna use the exact technical term for stuff, so why would people in a fantasy setting?) and present that with a little sidebar somewhere.
WotC couldn't use Ancestry because then they'd have people saying they nicked the idea from Pathfinder 2e (and they're already getting some of that thanks to the class-agnostic spell lists they were playing with at one point, not to mention how many 5e homebrewers have accidentally re-invented PF2e). Dungeons & Discourse floated the idea of "Folk" which feels very fitting from an in-universe perspective.
Personally I'd have suggested "Kith" but then I remembered that's the term Obsidian used in Pillars of Eternity.
Also, I always had a headcanon about Half-breeds. IRL, mules and ligers and other half animals cannot make babies. You cannot get a male liger and a female liger and make a new baby liger. You can only get them from one adult lion and one adult tiger. So why not have that be the case in D&D universe too? Why are there so few Half Elves around? Not only because of the lifespan gap, where a human lives for 8 decades while elves live for 8 centuries, but also because those children cannot make more of themselves. So full-blood, I can't think of a better way of saying what I mean, creatures can make families and legacies and dynasties. But there is no-one to pass down too for Half-breeds.
Think about how that can make interesting stories. Half Elves, who lose a parent while they are still a child because the human parent dies quickly compared to the Elven lifespan. Half Orcs, whose mother was taken in a raid, seen as weaker by the Pure Blood Orcs, seen as a Monster due to the situation of their Birth. Something that they had no control of. Half Dwarves, too big to fit comfortably in the mines of their cousins. Too Small to easily participate in normal human life.
And none of them. Not a single one, can build a society to accommodate Half breeds. Because they cannot make their own children. They have to rely on full bloods to keep mixing. All it would take is a few decades of war between species, and there go you new member being born.
Now, this is a Head canon of mine. I know it would not be for everyone. I know it is not how real D&D is set up. But I love to see how we all are different from each other, just as much as we all are the same. The more things change, the more things stay the same. Stay safe, Brothers and Sister. I love you.
That is, more or less, my head canon as well.
That is how I always interpreted the situation but with a lot more words.
This is very confusing. I swear I saw an official tweet completely refuting the rumor of removing half elves, but after a quick Google now, it does look like that's what they're doing
That sidebar for having parents of different lineages is surprisingly restrictive, and maybe even a little insulting to the player's creativity. The idea of having to set rules for non-mechanical aspects of the game (just like with the sidebar about custom magic appearance in Tasha's) feels like it shouldn't have to be said, or at the very least not separately for each aspect of the game. As far as the mechanical implications go... hopefully they put more thought into it. They have a hard enough time separating traits inherited by blood and by culture, so I'm not confident that we'll see anything that makes sense but hey, I like surprises.
A core part of character creation for the community at large has been the adage, "Flavor is Free," and this new rule doesn't add anything beyond that.
Wotc: you can be half just we don't acknowledge it. You either get the racial benefits of your father or mother you must pick a lane, but your half origin doesn't determine your own special abilities of your mixed heritage.
That's what we call erasure
I remember the times of 2nd Edition AD&D planescape were Half-Elfs had a double identity crisis for not only being in beetweenhuman and elfen culture but beetween planar and material culture as well as there were no planar elfs.
But those were TSR games, in the before WotC times.
Lets call kalishtar half quari, tieflings half demons, aasimar half angels, shifter half lycanthrope, goliath half giant, hex blood half hag, dhampir half vampire, reborn half undead, and the animal races half animal. As the original minotaur was born of a human woman, with the Cretan bull as the father.
i find a lot of companies are trying to blame their stupid decisions on being 'progressive'. in a lot of cases its actually intentional, the goal being to muddy the perception of social progress.
Like, with the "girl ghostbusters movie", amongst other stuff
This.
wrong, social progressive people are just genuinely this stupid
I suspect that this is the result of Wizards execs *trying* to care (or, more likely, act like they care) but not having the will to put in actual effort to do so. They would have been better off looking to fanmade sources such as Arcanist Press's Ancestry and Culture supplement or Matt Mercer's Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting book for inspiration than pulling this stunt.
If it seems like a company cares.. they dont. Just look wich companies change their twitter avatars to rainbow flags during pride month.. but only in western countries where that is acceptable.. but not in china, middle east or africa... wont see them standing for those values in those countries... its all just lipservice. If they could they would sell the entire LGBTQ crowd out if it made them more money
@@riptors9777 Absolutely this. Corpos didn't start celebrating pride month until after SCOTUS ruled that it was unconstitutional to ban us from marrying, and the moment that gets overturned, they'll stop.
Wizards doesn't want to do that because then it would be admitting that third parties or other people can actually do shit better than they could and it would mean maybe they aren't actually the world's greatest fantasy role-playing game.
4:20 ... that rule just reads like what im sure someone would refer to as a "one drop rule". thats incredibly stupid. Pathfinder 1E sort of had it, but only with Tiefling and Aasimar, specifically because the variants within had to do with with the size and cosmetics being in part of the mortal blood, but the statlines of the non-mortal blood exerting their power along with cosmetic features. it made a heck of a lot more sense then a "modern" half-elf in this system of thought, and they expanded those races to cover every potential alignment meet up of non-mortal and mortal.
Also, it's been a bit, so remind me- was it just twitter randos who think like this that were equating black people to orcs awhile back, or was it people within the company itself? because this stance implies that any of the relationships ive had with anyone i wanted a family with (because they apparently assume white is the standard, and by extension that'd make them the humans, no?) would apparently be unable to be "represented" as a PC unless I followed such a sidebar rule. reducing either "my blood" or "their's" to below notice instead of the union it would be.
I'm skipping over the mechanical issues of losing these race variants and all the players since their respective inceptions who've ran their actual rules getting phased out, because by the mindsets exhibited around this company alone, this is some seriously racist crap by their standards, isn't it? talk about smashing "representation" they can't help but constantly sell. speaking of which! children of different humanoid kinds. is it just me, or did i get a PoC feel out of this with how big this umbrella is gonna be? CoDHK. they somehow think thats better then actual statlines for prominent half's that point out what race they really get elements from in the name. modern acronymming, yaaaaayyyyy.... just as insulting as the original could, but more verbose to sound smarter than it is.
Hold on a second, why didn't they just rename them Elf-kin and Orc-kin, or something else that implies variance if they were so shattered by the term "half" either?! don't we have a number of words they could have used already?
The twitter randos work for WoTC.. hence you have things like color swapped Aragorn and other "look at how progressive we are, arent we great?" nonsense like that, wich no one ever asked for. They are so deep in the progressive twitter hole that they have come out the other side and turned into racists themselves.. and dont even realize it. They are actually repeating KKK talking points... you cant make that sh*t up. And yes.. no one but them and twitter made the connection that orcs = black people. Because these terminally social media addicted people can only think on the lines of racist arguments. Seriously if you asked them to explain themselves they come up with the most racist nonsense and not even realize that its only them that make this connection... "well obviously they are a standin for X because they are protrait as evil, violent, tribal, murderous primitives that only know how to pillage and plunder!" I mean the fact that black people can be found everywhere in any DnD world must have completly gone by them... somehow...
But they are the good guys, the progressive.. the inclusive... i mean inclusive means cutting out things right? And that doesnt even touch the subject that is their "sensitivity" readers.. aka their house intern censorship division... oy vey...
If it was only that the term Half- was making it racist, they're ignoring the fact quite a few other terms are more racist. Halflings being the big one, as they have a name for their own people, but just go along with the common term because they're so chill.
@@kylethomas9130 they just want to keep making landmines for themselves. I had more than enough of this well earlier with them.
boring game for me due to slashed game complexity both mechanically and story wise every other time i looked at it. every time i tried to play it due to friends constantly asking me to they couldn't even last a full session. then they started pulling the crap above combined with the OGL. for those who leaned on half-elf and half-orc as their core races mechanically, i feel really sorry for them.
People use to joke they'd start turning more things into humans, and they are functionally doing that with this.
@@kylethomas9130 And thats not even touching the racial tensions that go on between dwarfs and elfs.. or dwarfs and orcs... or dwarfs and goblins.. or dwarfs and... vegetarians? Sheesh.. dwarfs are quite the racists arent they?
The problem is that you're using an outdated definition of racism. They don't teach it that way any longer, especially in colleges. Critical race theory redefines race, racism, and more, and proponents of the theory also believe that mixing races wrong, all the way down.
If you want another name for Half-bred races I offer these alternatives: Feytouched for Half-elves and Hordeling for Half-Orcs.
Unfortunately "feytouched" is problematic now. - WoTC sensitivity readers, probably.
If Wotc REALLY thought having half races in D&D was racist, they would scrub it from their online resources instead of making it available. What are their thoughts on players who use the half races anyway? Are they racist or do they need to know the skin color of that player first to make that determination?
I'm Half-Drow, and I approve this message.
I half orc and prove this message
This stuff is why I have my Heritage system where you can mechanically represent being 1/4 of up to 4 different things. Fuck WoTC, I'm making my own system
What exactly is racist about wanting to play as a half-human, half-elf?
I play a lot of Half-Elves...
"I am offended!"
I was kinda ok with what you said the moment you mentioned a harpy with a centaur you had earned my full attention, thank you ma'am for also relishing relationship among monsters
Grand Wizards of the KKKoast don't like no mixin' at the gamin' table.
When they assert such, they need to prove it, opinion isn't proof. Speaking on someone's Be- Half! 😉😊
…what DOESN'T WotC think is racist or problematic? If you hire sensitivity readers, they’re going to find a lot of shit to be sensitive about.
Because that’s their job.
In terms of other content. My favorite streams of yours were discussions of RPG theories and concepts. The quantum ogre example comes to mind, but of course he has been slain so many times. (which makes sense because he appears no matter what direction the conversation takes) I'm very out of the loop on the current state of RPG design theory to give more specific suggestions though. I suppose I wouldn't mind some discussions that directly target the DnD box. What sort of assumptions are inherent in DnD, but not to RPGs in general that people without experience with other systems take for granted?
Thank you for talking about this! Feels a little like this topic is getting swept under the rug when contrasted with the rest of the topics brought up at the creator summit. I've seen a fair number of good videos on the subject and honestly removing the concept of the half races doesn't sit right with me. Aasimar and Tieflings got a lot of attention as blood descendant races over the last couple editions, with their latest inclusion as a species since they were revealed to potentially be in the 2024 players Handbook in the, but if we are removing half stuff why aren't we shifting the half races into the blood descendant category? Or removing Aasimar and Tieflings all together?
I'm curious to see how this sorts itself out. But if Wizards follows through with the current lineup and the change from race to species I'd like to speculate that at least a few people may make the easy mistake and seek to combined Race + Species as options. Or worse, Backgrounds become what race was and the game is essentially the same aside from the source of the abilities and features.
Im sad to see the limits WotC be so limited in their view on the peoples of DnD
I remember hearing stories of Nigerian Emmigrants to Sweden, workers who left their homes and extended families in Nigeria, starting new lives and having children in Sweden. Those workers saw themselves as Transplant Nigerians. Just because they lived and worked in Sweden, that did not make them Swedish in their Hearts. But there kids, who were they? Their parents were Nigerian, but they had never seen the Sun or Savannah of Nigeria, They had only ever known the Snow of Sweden. But the locals didn't think they were Swedish, and Nigerian didn't think they were Nigerian either.
So what were they? Certainly not half breeds, as yuck as that word is to me, something that didn't exist before them.
Identity is a hard thing to get down on to paper. But I think the removal of Half-breeds from D&D is a step away from progress.
Plus what are we going to do with all the jokes about characters Min Max'd by giving them tons of race ancestors?
This is WotC being like "We want to trim the page count, let's just say some species are racist and get rid of them. That should go well. "
Nothing says anti racist like supporting racial purity and outlawing mixed race dating...... wait
Not that I didn't enjoy the "rant", but if you're looking for something to talk about, we always need more people who're willing to go into the abstract/foundational worldbuilding stuff. Creating worlds/campaigns with themes, portraying those themes through gameplay/mechanics, etc, etc.
I don't know what they're thinking, but I assume the "racist" aspect is in the automatic implication the other half is human. You probably wouldn't call an elf/orc hybrid either half-elf or half-orc. They're clearly a 'forc or an eeyore or an urkel.
The ethnic purity and aparthood that WotC advocates by completely eliminating fantasy interspecies like half-elves is much more racist and worse thing to do. Paizo handled this much better, and in Pathfinder you can role play a character whose parents were, for example, an orc and an elf, or whoever the player wants them to be in character creation.
Very much resonate with identifying with the half race characters as a person whose no more than a quarter of anything.
Glad to hear this from someone who is mixed. As a white I guy I am hesitant to jump to opinions on matters like this that I have no experience in. I am, however, pleased that my initial feelings have been validated here.
Yep. WotC's official position is that races intermingling is bad.
No. That's exactly the *opposite* of what they are saying. Their point is that **calling someone** a "half-xxx," while assuming that the other half is always human, that's the racist part. The game rules set up a game world in which being "half-xxx" is seen as being lesser, and that's what they're trying to fix. It's a holdover from the '70s and '80s, when humans were presumed to be the primary focal race of the game. While the mechanics in the first iteration definitely need improvement, the whole point is to widen and diversify the possible multiracial combos in the game. Why is this so hard for so many people to grasp?
@@stephenklien Sounds like damage control to me. Are you being paid by their PR department?
@@KittyCatMeowMeowTime No, I read carefully and I'm thinking critically. I'm not jumping on an anti-WOTC bandwagon with a knee jerk response that I'm unwilling to question. Now, WOTC absolutely deserves the community mistrust they are getting after the s*** they pulled with the OGL. (I play MTG, too, and WOTC has been predatory regarding that community, too). That doesn't mean that two sentences from Patrick Crawford quoted out of context justifies a hysterical misinterpretation of their UA. Arguments about de facto biracial erasure due to having to select one race for mechanical traits have much more merit... and it's looking like WOTC will likely be responsive to feedback on this point. But this "they'ee taking half-orcs and half-elves away from us!" bit is just nonsense. Their UA explicitly proves this point false.
Wizard's feelings are invalid and their opinions are incorrect.
sounds like they read a orc/elf hentai and got really mad lol
"Ancestry & Culture: An Alternative to Race in 5e" by Eugene Marshall addressed this so much better than WotC. It even expanded Half- options to include anything you want, while also addressing the actual problem with Half-Elf and Half-Orc in a FAR more intelligent manner.
Meanwhile there are anime shows where there is tension between humans and elves. Then there are one or two couples who crossed that and go out to have a kid as proof there can be peace between the species. The kids are seen as "the bridge" between them. Think Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World accomplished this.
In the playtest they use lineage to denote what 5e knows as subraces so I don't think they had a problem with the word itself. Ancestry from Pathfinder 2E works fine as a replacement word for race or we could flip Pathfinder nomenclature around and use Heritage for race and ancestry for subrace. Dragonborn already kind of use ancestry to denote what type of dragonborn they are. Species feels weird coming off the tongue.
Does that mean no Centaurs (half human, half horse) or Lamia (half human, half snake) or Gryphon (half lion, half Eagle) or Mermaid (half human, half fish)?
Oh gosh, they'll have to remove owlbear from the monster manual.
What could be more racist than 2 people of different races having kids, I ask?
This was a good video Di!
I mean....half Chinese half Filipino sounds super cute to me.
WotC: "We're going to remove the racist stuff from D&D."
Me: "So you're going to admit saying drow being curses with black skin so people knew there were evil, in the fucking 90s, was a weird thing?"
WotC: "Nah, we're removing mixed children."
Wouldn't that have been mid-80s?
@@shagohad3 The last time it was printed was Complete Book of Elves, which game out in 1993. I remember reading it in like '99-ish and even in my edgy libertarian phase wondered how it passed the editors.
Keep doing ur thing. Like ur style.
This is a reminder not to underestimate WotC's executives. They know how to divide and rule.
I know there are lot of stories out there were half elves gets discriminated by either side but to remove half builds completely is wild.
Im also half german and half Peruvian and feel enriched by having two different cultures
New Warhammer Edition trailer reaction please ;)
If halflings are standing up for anything, they'll be easily overlooked.
Thanks you for making this I have been thinking the same
My understanding from that UA is that mixed lineage/whatever character players pick traits from multiple species. Not only moving away from humanocentric “half-nonhuman” nomenclature, but also effectively increasing your character design and background options. Did I misread?
You get to only pick traits from one mechanically. Visibly you can pick either. So it's just image/flavor which we've ALWAYS been able to do anyways
@@dicequeenDino that was homebrew and not in the rules.
So now you can still homebrew and mix mechanics. I don't really get your point.
"I used to homebrew some stuff and now they have added part of that to the rules, so I am mad because..."
I don't know how you finish that, but everything I can think of is either false (ex. They took something away) or irrelevant because you homebrew ( your Goliath/gnome can be whatever size and whatever mix of traits you and your DM agree to)
as a Half I agree, I'm actually a bit offended by WOTC for saying half is racist.
Yours 1/2 Turkish Jew, 1/2 Scottish.
You are awesome Di. Roll 17d6+5 inches for your character height and have your short human PC rounded up for being a halfling.
Short answer, No.
As a puertorrican, feels like when Hasbro says that half-something is being lesser, feel like they are the ones being racist.
That's exactly the opposite of what they are saying. Their point is that *calling someone* a "half-xxx," while assuming that the other half is always human, that's the racist part. The game rules set up a game world in which being "half-xxx" is seen as being lesser, and that's what they're trying to fix. It's a holdover from the '70s and '80s, when humans were presumed to be the primary focal race of the game.
The origin of this problem is that D&D has used "species" and "race" as if they are interchangeable words which they are not. A decision based on a falsehood will be inherently flawed. "Garbage In, Garbage Out"
D&D elves are clearly a different species from humans. Elves also have different races such as aquatic elves, dark elves (drow), deep elves (rockseer), grey elves, high elves, moon elves, snow elves, sun elves, valley elves, wild elves (grugach), wood elves and winged elves (avariel). A half-elf or half-orc would be equivalent to a real-world mule (a hybrid of two different species) and the D&D books are filled with mythic multispecies creatures for example tieflings, aasamir, mermaids, cockatrice, chimera, minotaur, harpies, griffins, manticores, striders, centaurs, quarterlings, etc.
I can’t figure out what they were doing. Playing a half Orc helped me process my own identity crisis.
What the hell? Another based V-tuber.
"are half-elves racist? " NO! don't ask stupid questions
A third since that's 3 racial backgrounds.
Still I think you thought more about this, than those idiots at Wizards did.
no notes. Bump for engagement
My girlfriend thinks removing the mixed race is exceptionally racist and offensive, with her being mixed race
You Hit the nail on the head Di
Half elves suffer from racism...
Age and mature too slow for human, age and mature too fast for elves.
This reminds me of a discussion between two characters in a novel, decades ago now. The book is "Dragons of Autumns Twilight" I believe by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. In it Riverwind innocently asks Tanis Half-Elven why he is called that and not Half-man. For a moment Tanis is all set to get angry before remembering Riverwind is from a barbaric tribe and as such has no context to make an insulting remark.
That aside if anyone wants to invent a better name for a dual natured person in D&D I'm all for it. Personally I think this all started when some lawyer person looked at the descriptions of half elves and orcs and noticed that, according to standard lore, half people tend to be discriminated against. Not wanting to be seen as "promoting" discrimination deciding to cut these races from official material going forward.
People who say half elves are racist, are arguing the same point that people who claimed mixed race marriages were bad, or their children were the work of the devil.
If anything, denying half races and attempting to remove them from existence is WAY more racist and displays a worrying lack of judgement and morality.
Really loved this video. We would love to have you on a podcast sometime!
Halflings got their name because of their size, and because Hobbit is copyrighted.
Any % filipino is still filipino ❤ Toast from OfflineTV is around 4% filipino from dnatest so now he's allowed to pinoybait 😂
WOW! As a quarter-Navajo, 3 quarter-European I find this incredible offensive. Half-elves and Half-orcs are super inclusive and help make the world more interesting and fantastical. Excluding them makes the world feel more divided and less inclusive. Mixed people like myself love character choices like Half-elf and Half-orc cause we can relate more and understand what it's like to live in two different worlds.
There are two positives that have come from this madness: 1, players are coming to realize how irrelevant WotC's decisions are when it comes to D&D. People are practically ignoring these decisions because of how ridiculous they are! 2, people are finding just how irrelevant WotC is in playing and developing D&D, because it is all out there! World of Io is creating their own features, Dragonfinder Gaming is incorporating parts of Pathfinder into their D&D 5e world, and we're getting ORC!
I'll be honest, one of my friends has convinced me to just make my campaign in 5e. However, I intend on creating a new world with new races, different plains, etc., and I plan on using ORC for any publishing I do. Yes, I'm stuck in that box that you warned about, but I hope to use as few of WotC's resources as possible! Wish me luck!
Grand Wizards of the Coast 😂 2:48
Wow just started dm'ing and one of my place made a half elf barbarian charismatic, yet dumb and Hella strong, guess I'll have to tell him his character got canceled lol (just kidding I'll just use what I got). Also as a mixed person it feels weird like am I not half back half white?
To be fair, the halflings could be standing up against this; it'd be pretty hard to notice.