To be fair there is removals happening but they are generally seen as a good thing
To whom? Cause destruction of languages has NEVER been used to squash debate/dissent in the past, right? People who read "to outsiders, these people seem like lazy, shiftless bums" isn't saying they're lazy shiftless bums. its showing the people viewing them are prejudiced. Maybe the outrage crowd needs to learn a little critical thinking....
I am expressing general sentiments for the community. I personally haven't read or dealt with the books myself so I have a hard time making a judgement as I do not have a good frame of reference. I do deal with negative stereotypes in games in my Eberron setting as I had Warforged as a marginalized race with stereotypical assumptions made about them from racists...but I do make that choice with discussions with my group.
Having it inherently in the game without that component should likely NOT be the default.
To be fair there is removals happening but they are generally seen as a good thing
To whom? Cause destruction of languages has NEVER been used to squash debate/dissent in the past, right? People who read "to outsiders, these people seem like lazy, shiftless bums" isn't saying they're lazy shiftless bums. its showing the people viewing them are prejudiced. Maybe the outrage crowd needs to learn a little critical thinking....
I would like to highlight that the 'outrage crowd that needs to learn a little critical thinking' are actual people from Romani and traveller cultures that are actively, to this day on the receiving end of this kind of language. When you are a person of a given culture who faces abuse, and you pick up a book and see an analogue of your culture with the exact same abuse being depicted as a normal perception, that actively does harm. Although the 'no skin in the game, just likes to be offended on behalf of other people' narrative is a nice, cute, easy to ridicule and knockdown one, it's not an accurate one. There are people who are hurt by these harmful depictions, so maybe reign in your value judgements.
This is also an off topic aside, as this thread isn't about Curse of Strahd, errata removing problematic racial language, or errata/changes to existing material in general. That's a whole other topic and trying to get into that mire in this discussion is just a red herring redirect. Nothing regarding depictions of mental illness is being errata'd, changed or removed. WotC is just going in a new direction. A direction that is psychologically and sociologically informed and supported, so before you start lambasting people for their so called lack of 'critical thinking', keep in mind that peoples whose jobs it is to critically think on these things are on board with the changes.
To be fair there is removals happening but they are generally seen as a good thing
To whom? Cause destruction of languages has NEVER been used to squash debate/dissent in the past, right? People who read "to outsiders, these people seem like lazy, shiftless bums" isn't saying they're lazy shiftless bums. its showing the people viewing them are prejudiced. Maybe the outrage crowd needs to learn a little critical thinking....
Read OptimusGrimus's post, and you'll see why those removals were seen as good things. Making Vistani less tied to the harmful stereotypes of the Romani people is a good thing, even if a book has to be edited to do that. Not referring to people with dark skin that live in a jungle as "exotic", "tribal", or "primitive" is a good thing, even if the books have to be edited to make that change.
I know you are trying to score points with your side/base, but you really ought to read the offensive language that is being changed before you get mad about it. Maybe the side getting "outraged" about these changes isn't the one advocating for removing the offensive language, but the one that throws themselves into a fit at the mere idea of considering the idea of changing it.
I genuinely think that removing the word "exotic" when it describes inanimate objects is going a step too far in the pursuit of inoffensive language. People, sure. Exotic wares? Common.
"The people doing the perceiving," in Davyd's example, are the Romani. Are you really saying they're "bigoted idiots" for not wanting to be called shiftless?
I'm not Romani, but am I a "bigoted idiot" if I think it's bad to portray them poorly?
No-one is editing history books here. No-one is advocating for erasure of the past. It's just a basic desire for a game to not repeat or advance terrible viewpoints.
You do not get to tell other people "No, you're wrong" when they say they've felt pain from something. Many people have given the same message over and over and over and over and over and over and over in this thread - pain is always real. Some people feel it more easily than others. Some people are better at masking it than others. Some people have a higher tolerance for it than others. But the pain itself is always real.
I find it absolutely incredible that so many people are so determined to continue causing pain in this thread. I've seen dozens of accusations now of people "feigning" or "faking" pain to try and drum up emotional support to pervert or destroy D&D As We Know It. Why? What possible reason could someone have to follow this path? It's absolutely nonsensical, totally irrational. It smacks of conspiracy-mongering, in which people warn others of the horrible threat facing what they love and if they don't act to stop it Right Now everything will be Ruined...but nobody ever clarifies what is being ruined, why it's being ruined, or how basic consideration for another's feelings is going to ruin a game forever.
My head can understand the fear motivation, the need to defeat something frightening and win, but the rational-argument side of it cannot help but protest the complete failure of reason such arguments represent. Just...yeesh.
I genuinely think that removing the word "exotic" when it describes inanimate objects is going a step too far in the pursuit of inoffensive language. People, sure. Exotic wares? Common.
Ok, but speaking from personal experience, I have been made to feel like a weird outsider when things that I use in everyday life were called "exotic." This is especially impactful when it comes to food.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Ok, but speaking from personal experience, I have been made to feel like a weird outsider when things that I use in everyday life were called "exotic." This is especially impactful when it comes to food.
It's not exactly something easy to explain to someone who hasn't been made to feel like a foreigner in their own country through small and subtle things like this, but it's not a good thing.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
That's one of the most important things for someone in this day and age to understand, and which very few people or organizations do any kind of job of getting out there.
People like to carp on things like this whole 'Madness' discussion as being pointless because it seems like such a small, inconsequential change. But as Ophidian says, it's not the huge, egregious, easy-to-spot errors that cause problems. Those are easy. It's easy to call people on them, it's easy to see the problems with them, and even the most stubborn folks can easily see why those things are problems.
It's the thousand and one little nettles, the minor irritants and momentary downers that nobody ever thinks about, that truly drives home 'Otherness' and reinforces a cultural bias against a given state or origin. The subtle things you would never think are a problem unless you've been raised in a situation where those things sting you a hundred times a day. No individual sting is worth mentioning, or a real problem in itself. The combination of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, delivered in an unceasing, relentless tide by everyone around you who never thinks anything of their stings and who are as likely to tell you to just lighten up and stop being so thin-skinned? Those can wear on you in a way the Big Shit never does, never will.
It's insidious, it's dangerous, and it's so much harder to fight than the Big Shit. it's why threads like this go to sixteen pages and beyond - people are trying to inform others of the horrible nature of the thousand stings of "inconsequential" stuff, but they're constantly belittled and dismissed as blowing Little Shit out of proportion and just being too thin-skinned.
It's not a matter of our skin being too thin. it's a matter of enough stings can eventually pierce through any hide, and nobody ever listens to us when we ask them to stop stinging.
But this is not dialogue in question. It is descriptive text and to outsiders. To the locals, the outsiders themselves are exotic, but the story is not from their perspective. Now as a DM, completely fair game to run the module from the perspective of the locals, who end up having to bail out the hapless foreigners and solve the mystery/save the day themselves. Or alternatively foiling a plot by said outsiders to exploit the locals' land and/or customs.
However that is not how it is written. Perhaps it should be, but that would be real change, not merely cosmetic.
Ok, but why does Chult have to be the "exotic" place and not say ... Cormyr? For one thing, it's a double standard. For another, think of the people who look like Chultans or wear clothes like them or eat food like they do. Isn't it worth a slight tone change to not make people feel alienated? Is it really necessary to preserve some sort of exotification of a fictional people for some reason? Ethnocentrism isn't really a defining feature of D&D that has to be defended, right? So why are you defending it?
The alternative to Ethnocentrism would be Uniformity, everyone adopting the identical culture, whatever was agreed upon. If you do not believe your culture is superior to alternatives, why do you have that culture?
Are you sure you know the definition of ethnocentrism? Do you really believe the alternative to ethnocentrism is uniformity? Honestly? Have you never heard of multiculturalism?
Note this is not the same as condemning the other culture for their differences, nor is it treating them as inferior. 'Exotic,' 'different,' these are simple realities to be accepted. When used positively, 'Exotic' provides incentive to actually legitimately learn the ways of the other culture. They are something new to you. Their ways may actually be better, or at least help you improve your own. So learn them properly and find out.
As opposed to 'They are no different from us, nothing worth learning here,' which is just as bad as 'they are inferior to us, nothing worth learning here.'
You really talk like someone who has never experienced being shamed, ostracized, degraded, or even belittled in subtle ways for being "foreign" in your own home country. It must be nice. For you it's a hypothetical that you are dismissing and even trying to put a positive spin on. For me, in my own lived and personal experience it is not nice nor is it positive. You can appreciate someone else's culture as different and interesting from your own without deeming it "exotic" and thus stamping it with the label of foreignness and otherness. Just as you can find new things within your own culture that you have never heard of and are interesting and new to you, but recognize it as something "normal" you don't have to add that unnecessary and alienating label to things from other people.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
'Exotic' is only alienating when you use it in such a manner.
Intentions are not magic. Even if someone doesn't mean something to be alienating, it can still be alienating. One can very easily say and do things that are harmful on accident, with all the good intentions. So no, "exotic" is not only alienating when used in such a manner. Again, I'm telling you how it is, because I've experienced it. I don't feel like you're talking from experience, but I could be wrong.
Edit: To expound a bit, being called "exotic" when the person saying it means it as a compliment is super ******* creepy as shit.
Edit: And bringing this back on topic, we have gone from renaming 'Madness' to moving several other words deemed problematic and wringing hands over the feelings of a mythical people who, I still argue, are not actually being portrayed negatively. In fact, I argue that it is a ethnocentric, colonial perspective insisting that such words must be negative by continuing to play up any and all negative connotations, dismissing the positive connotations.
Different or 'exotic,' if you will, is not a bad thing by way of being different, nor even likely a bad thing in any other way either.
siiiiiiggghhhhh ......
RE: "Wringing hands over the feelings of a mythical people" - Please don't do that. This is very annoying. All along I have been saying that I personally have been harmed by language such as found in Tomb of Annihilation. Granted it wasn't specifically Tomb of Annihilation, but rather Oriental Adventures, but this has never been about defending the feelings of fictional characters. It has been about defending the readers. The fact that you have been in a conversation with me this whole time and dismissively summarize my point as this is, frankly, infuriating. Never do that again.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Edit: And bringing this back on topic, we have gone from renaming 'Madness' to moving several other words deemed problematic and wringing hands over the feelings of a mythical people who, I still argue, are not actually being portrayed negatively. In fact, I argue that it is a ethnocentric, colonial perspective insisting that such words must be negative by continuing to play up any and all negative connotations, dismissing the positive connotations.
Different or 'exotic,' if you will, is not a bad thing by way of being different, nor even likely a bad thing in any other way either.
siiiiiiggghhhhh ......
RE: "Wringing hands over the feelings of a mythical people" - Please don't do that. This is very annoying. All along I have been saying that I personally have been harmed by language such as found in Tomb of Annihilation. Granted it wasn't specifically Tomb of Annihilation, but rather Oriental Adventures, but this has never been about defending the feelings of fictional characters. It has been about defending the readers. The fact that you have been in a conversation with me this whole time and dismissively summarize my point as this is, frankly, infuriating. Never do that again.
I want to second this exasperation; throughout this thread people, myself included, having been raising our hands (and I know in my own case, making myself feel fairly exposed and vulnerable) to say "Yes, I'm one of the people affected by harmful language." It's not made up, it's not people getting offended on the behalves of others. It's not people getting upset over mistreatment of 'mythical people'. Actual people are saying that they are actually harmed by the language printed in these books, and if that harm is going to be reduced, mitigated, or otherwise avoided where possible, that language needs to be reconsidered.
I'm not getting offended on behalf of other people. I'm offended on my own behalf. I'm offended because I'm hurt, not for the sake of being offended, but because I'm sick and tired of seeing the same toxic language bandied about. The same language that made me afraid to seek help. The same language... [CW; potentially triggering themes relating around mental health]
...that made me self harm for a sake of control due to the shame I felt about being 'mad' and 'insane'. The same language that made me feel repulsed and ashamed from a sense of weakness and failure after I almost took my own life. The same language that had me sobbing on the floor at the fear of being 'locked up' in a hospital. The same language...
...that made me avoid seeing a therapist over what would turn out to be obsessive compulsive disorder until I met someone who didn't use that language. Who understood how damaging language was and didn't make me feel ashamed.
So no, do not make this about people trying to be faux offended for the sake of victim clout. Don't try and make this about prejudice against fake people. Real people are here, in this thread, saying how they are directly being affected and how these changes are making a difference. A small difference, but a difference nonetheless. I look at D&D and I see a hobby that wants me.
So if anyone reading this feels that Wizards making D&D feel inclusive to people like myself makes you feel excluded, maybe take a moment to step back and think about what that says about you? A little introspection and self reflection never hurt anyone. If the hobby you love becoming more inclusive and welcoming threatens and scares you, that says something more telling about yourself than Wizards of the Coast.
Kotath. Your continual dismissal and mischaracterization of my points has crossed a point to where it feels rude. I have been telling you how things legitimately make me feel and it does not feel to me like you are trying at all to understand me, but rather going out of your way to misframe me. I don't know if it's because text doesn't convey things properly or not and I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt so let me state this clearly and explicitly. You are being rude and inconsiderate of me to the point of being hurtful and I would like you to stop.
Ideally I would like you to make some effort to reach out and ask questions about my experience rather than just dismiss and belittle, but I would settle for you to just stop talking to me.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I, like you, like everyone here, am just a fellow human advocating for what they feel is the better path.
I know I'm kinda jumping into this particular sub-conversation, but I've been mostly following along and have a question.
In your opinion, what is the better path? For WotC, specifically. (I know you're not a publisher, and am not asking for excrutiating detail or anything.)
That's how language works . . . and that's how society works. There's a reason why no one says "totally tubular/radical" anymore. This is the reason. It's because language changes as society changes, and society changes a ton because it is in the nature of humanity to evolve socially.
The only constant is change.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Congratulations! You just did the exact same fallacy as UrthTheThoughtless while also criticizing them for using it (you know, because you pointed out a logical fallacy without actually providing rebuttal to their argument).
I explained in this post why arguments based off of that logical fallacy used in this topic are invalid.
That's how language works . . . and that's how society works. There's a reason why no one says "totally tubular/radical" anymore. This is the reason. It's because language changes as society changes, and society changes a ton because it is in the nature of humanity to evolve socially.
The only constant is change.
History is written by the winners and all that.
Or something about staring into the abyss.
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#OpenDnD
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I am expressing general sentiments for the community. I personally haven't read or dealt with the books myself so I have a hard time making a judgement as I do not have a good frame of reference. I do deal with negative stereotypes in games in my Eberron setting as I had Warforged as a marginalized race with stereotypical assumptions made about them from racists...but I do make that choice with discussions with my group.
Having it inherently in the game without that component should likely NOT be the default.
I would like to highlight that the 'outrage crowd that needs to learn a little critical thinking' are actual people from Romani and traveller cultures that are actively, to this day on the receiving end of this kind of language. When you are a person of a given culture who faces abuse, and you pick up a book and see an analogue of your culture with the exact same abuse being depicted as a normal perception, that actively does harm. Although the 'no skin in the game, just likes to be offended on behalf of other people' narrative is a nice, cute, easy to ridicule and knockdown one, it's not an accurate one. There are people who are hurt by these harmful depictions, so maybe reign in your value judgements.
This is also an off topic aside, as this thread isn't about Curse of Strahd, errata removing problematic racial language, or errata/changes to existing material in general. That's a whole other topic and trying to get into that mire in this discussion is just a red herring redirect. Nothing regarding depictions of mental illness is being errata'd, changed or removed. WotC is just going in a new direction. A direction that is psychologically and sociologically informed and supported, so before you start lambasting people for their so called lack of 'critical thinking', keep in mind that peoples whose jobs it is to critically think on these things are on board with the changes.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
I genuinely think that removing the word "exotic" when it describes inanimate objects is going a step too far in the pursuit of inoffensive language. People, sure. Exotic wares? Common.
I'm not Romani, but am I a "bigoted idiot" if I think it's bad to portray them poorly?
No-one is editing history books here. No-one is advocating for erasure of the past. It's just a basic desire for a game to not repeat or advance terrible viewpoints.
Brooklyn.
Please, stop it.
You do not get to tell other people "No, you're wrong" when they say they've felt pain from something. Many people have given the same message over and over and over and over and over and over and over in this thread - pain is always real. Some people feel it more easily than others. Some people are better at masking it than others. Some people have a higher tolerance for it than others. But the pain itself is always real.
I find it absolutely incredible that so many people are so determined to continue causing pain in this thread. I've seen dozens of accusations now of people "feigning" or "faking" pain to try and drum up emotional support to pervert or destroy D&D As We Know It. Why? What possible reason could someone have to follow this path? It's absolutely nonsensical, totally irrational. It smacks of conspiracy-mongering, in which people warn others of the horrible threat facing what they love and if they don't act to stop it Right Now everything will be Ruined...but nobody ever clarifies what is being ruined, why it's being ruined, or how basic consideration for another's feelings is going to ruin a game forever.
My head can understand the fear motivation, the need to defeat something frightening and win, but the rational-argument side of it cannot help but protest the complete failure of reason such arguments represent. Just...yeesh.
Please do not contact or message me.
Ok, but speaking from personal experience, I have been made to feel like a weird outsider when things that I use in everyday life were called "exotic." This is especially impactful when it comes to food.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
While I didn't precisely say "bad" I did say ...
It's not exactly something easy to explain to someone who hasn't been made to feel like a foreigner in their own country through small and subtle things like this, but it's not a good thing.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
That's one of the most important things for someone in this day and age to understand, and which very few people or organizations do any kind of job of getting out there.
People like to carp on things like this whole 'Madness' discussion as being pointless because it seems like such a small, inconsequential change. But as Ophidian says, it's not the huge, egregious, easy-to-spot errors that cause problems. Those are easy. It's easy to call people on them, it's easy to see the problems with them, and even the most stubborn folks can easily see why those things are problems.
It's the thousand and one little nettles, the minor irritants and momentary downers that nobody ever thinks about, that truly drives home 'Otherness' and reinforces a cultural bias against a given state or origin. The subtle things you would never think are a problem unless you've been raised in a situation where those things sting you a hundred times a day. No individual sting is worth mentioning, or a real problem in itself. The combination of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, delivered in an unceasing, relentless tide by everyone around you who never thinks anything of their stings and who are as likely to tell you to just lighten up and stop being so thin-skinned? Those can wear on you in a way the Big Shit never does, never will.
It's insidious, it's dangerous, and it's so much harder to fight than the Big Shit. it's why threads like this go to sixteen pages and beyond - people are trying to inform others of the horrible nature of the thousand stings of "inconsequential" stuff, but they're constantly belittled and dismissed as blowing Little Shit out of proportion and just being too thin-skinned.
It's not a matter of our skin being too thin. it's a matter of enough stings can eventually pierce through any hide, and nobody ever listens to us when we ask them to stop stinging.
Please do not contact or message me.
Ok, but why does Chult have to be the "exotic" place and not say ... Cormyr? For one thing, it's a double standard. For another, think of the people who look like Chultans or wear clothes like them or eat food like they do. Isn't it worth a slight tone change to not make people feel alienated? Is it really necessary to preserve some sort of exotification of a fictional people for some reason? Ethnocentrism isn't really a defining feature of D&D that has to be defended, right? So why are you defending it?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
It ... doesn't? And that wasn't my point at all? I'm more asking why any place needs to be labeled "exotic."
Are you sure you know the definition of ethnocentrism? Do you really believe the alternative to ethnocentrism is uniformity? Honestly? Have you never heard of multiculturalism?
You really talk like someone who has never experienced being shamed, ostracized, degraded, or even belittled in subtle ways for being "foreign" in your own home country. It must be nice. For you it's a hypothetical that you are dismissing and even trying to put a positive spin on. For me, in my own lived and personal experience it is not nice nor is it positive. You can appreciate someone else's culture as different and interesting from your own without deeming it "exotic" and thus stamping it with the label of foreignness and otherness. Just as you can find new things within your own culture that you have never heard of and are interesting and new to you, but recognize it as something "normal" you don't have to add that unnecessary and alienating label to things from other people.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Intentions are not magic. Even if someone doesn't mean something to be alienating, it can still be alienating. One can very easily say and do things that are harmful on accident, with all the good intentions. So no, "exotic" is not only alienating when used in such a manner. Again, I'm telling you how it is, because I've experienced it. I don't feel like you're talking from experience, but I could be wrong.
Edit: To expound a bit, being called "exotic" when the person saying it means it as a compliment is super ******* creepy as shit.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
If you'll do a review of our conversation about this point, I don't believe you'll find that I've ever tried to say that all labels are negative.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
siiiiiiggghhhhh ......
RE: "Wringing hands over the feelings of a mythical people" - Please don't do that. This is very annoying. All along I have been saying that I personally have been harmed by language such as found in Tomb of Annihilation. Granted it wasn't specifically Tomb of Annihilation, but rather Oriental Adventures, but this has never been about defending the feelings of fictional characters. It has been about defending the readers. The fact that you have been in a conversation with me this whole time and dismissively summarize my point as this is, frankly, infuriating. Never do that again.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I want to second this exasperation; throughout this thread people, myself included, having been raising our hands (and I know in my own case, making myself feel fairly exposed and vulnerable) to say "Yes, I'm one of the people affected by harmful language." It's not made up, it's not people getting offended on the behalves of others. It's not people getting upset over mistreatment of 'mythical people'. Actual people are saying that they are actually harmed by the language printed in these books, and if that harm is going to be reduced, mitigated, or otherwise avoided where possible, that language needs to be reconsidered.
I'm not getting offended on behalf of other people. I'm offended on my own behalf. I'm offended because I'm hurt, not for the sake of being offended, but because I'm sick and tired of seeing the same toxic language bandied about. The same language that made me afraid to seek help. The same language... [CW; potentially triggering themes relating around mental health]
...that made me self harm for a sake of control due to the shame I felt about being 'mad' and 'insane'. The same language that made me feel repulsed and ashamed from a sense of weakness and failure after I almost took my own life. The same language that had me sobbing on the floor at the fear of being 'locked up' in a hospital. The same language...
...that made me avoid seeing a therapist over what would turn out to be obsessive compulsive disorder until I met someone who didn't use that language. Who understood how damaging language was and didn't make me feel ashamed.
So no, do not make this about people trying to be faux offended for the sake of victim clout. Don't try and make this about prejudice against fake people. Real people are here, in this thread, saying how they are directly being affected and how these changes are making a difference. A small difference, but a difference nonetheless. I look at D&D and I see a hobby that wants me.
So if anyone reading this feels that Wizards making D&D feel inclusive to people like myself makes you feel excluded, maybe take a moment to step back and think about what that says about you? A little introspection and self reflection never hurt anyone. If the hobby you love becoming more inclusive and welcoming threatens and scares you, that says something more telling about yourself than Wizards of the Coast.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Kotath. Your continual dismissal and mischaracterization of my points has crossed a point to where it feels rude. I have been telling you how things legitimately make me feel and it does not feel to me like you are trying at all to understand me, but rather going out of your way to misframe me. I don't know if it's because text doesn't convey things properly or not and I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt so let me state this clearly and explicitly. You are being rude and inconsiderate of me to the point of being hurtful and I would like you to stop.
Ideally I would like you to make some effort to reach out and ask questions about my experience rather than just dismiss and belittle, but I would settle for you to just stop talking to me.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I know I'm kinda jumping into this particular sub-conversation, but I've been mostly following along and have a question.
In your opinion, what is the better path? For WotC, specifically. (I know you're not a publisher, and am not asking for excrutiating detail or anything.)
Does that sum it up somewhat?
#OpenDnD
That's how language works . . . and that's how society works. There's a reason why no one says "totally tubular/radical" anymore. This is the reason. It's because language changes as society changes, and society changes a ton because it is in the nature of humanity to evolve socially.
The only constant is change.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Congratulations! You just did the exact same fallacy as UrthTheThoughtless while also criticizing them for using it (you know, because you pointed out a logical fallacy without actually providing rebuttal to their argument).
I explained in this post why arguments based off of that logical fallacy used in this topic are invalid.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
History is written by the winners and all that.
Or something about staring into the abyss.
#OpenDnD