I'm sure you know what my position really is. It's nothing to do with one book. It's to do with WotC being the latest dominoe in a very long line of companies and other institutions that over the course of the last dozen or so years have felt the need to acquiesce to the idea that everything 'normal' is actually a product of endemic racism and they must scramble to fix what isn't broken to make a show of distancing themleves from an unenlightened past and embracing the brave new world.
That's not an honest or fair description of what WotC is doing, or what's happening to society.
If you want to keep playing "cowboys and indians" with your D&D (reskinned as "adventurers and orcs" or whatever), go ahead. That's not an issue. Much like how "I played actual 'cowboys and indians' as a kid" doesn't make you racist.
D&D, historically, has been that game. And in order to make that work, it has/had a bunch of "lore" carefully constructed to justify it. The problem is most modern players (and I'm pretty confident in saying "most") don't want to play something so on-the-nose. So WotC has been evolving D&D's lore so it's not just an elaborate house of cards meant to justify a genocidal wargame.
This has actually been happening over the course of decades. But anyway, WotC is making it easier for other players to play the game other ways, and the market has been rewarding them.
It's to do with WotC being the latest dominoe in a very long line of companies and other institutions that over the course of the last dozen or so years have felt the need to acquiesce to the idea that everything 'normal' is actually a product of endemic racism and they must scramble to fix what isn't broken to make a show of distancing themleves from an unenlightened past and embracing the brave new world.
That's because it's the truth. I apologize for not staying on topic, but I feel this is something that needs reiterating whenever and wherever it comes up. All of our societies and every institution in them are built with racist foundations and have always been, among other types of bigotry. Racism is something that humans only relatively recently have discovered is a bad thing and which we have not yet discovered how not to be. And I'm not just speaking from an academic point of view, as a person of color I've become used to dealing with tiny examples of it every day whether it be school, or work, or dealing with the government, etc etc etc. When we learn better, we should strive to be better. Problem is that we don't have an example of a human society that is free of bigotry so we are all in the dark about this, just trying our best.
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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!
This thread is about specific Errata, which you haven't read for a book you haven't read either. If you have a need to yell into the void about how the world as a whole is changing and leaving you behind, then you really should find a better place for it.
Which thread is the one talking about upcomming errata? The poll thread said it wasn't that one either.
It seems the real issue that has caused so much frustration, and which we have been circling for a few pages now, has finally revealed itself. That is a yikes from me.
A lot of D&D's lore, particularly the oldest of its lore, comes from the very problematic early days of D&D. Gary Gygax was not a good person--he helped make a wonderful game, but many of his personal beliefs were already antiquated by the 70s and crept into the game itself. He was, philosophically, a self-proclaimed "biological determinist" whose ideas on how race permeated his conceptualization of the game's races and cultures. Not that Gary was the only problem--read some of the early books written by Arnson and others and you'll see a rather heavy-handed reliance on stereotypes. Ernest, Gary's son and the namesake of Tenser (Tenser is an anagram of Ernest), continues to be a problematic game developer to this day, trying to make games that rely on the very same stereotypes that Wizards is trying to excise.
For much of Wizards' history with D&D, they have not taken any action to change the problematic origins of racial tropes in the game. Neither 3e (3.5) or 4e addressed these matters head-on, instead allowing the old stereotypes to remain as fundamental to the game itself. I do not think Wizards did this because Wizards was a racist company--they simply perpetuated the racism created by the game's founders, not considering it was a problem. That is, however, the definition of systemic racism--when a system born in racism is continues not out of racism, but because it has become self-perpetuating and no one thinks to change the underlying problems.
I, for one, am glad that Wizards is taking such a focus with 5e on addressing the systemic problems born of the game's origins. D&D is a wonderful game and everyone should feel welcome playing it. Outdated stereotypes and "biological determinism" hold no place in a game that welcomes members of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity.
I feel it strange to have to point this out, but what giants IRL? There is no such known race IRL to perceive. Now if you mean mythical giants, which myths specifically? There were good Giants and good Titans in Greek myth. There were in Norse as well, where the Aesir recognized the Giants as primal forces whose existence was necessary for cosmic balance. Meanwhile over in D&D as far back as 1e, Storm Giants have been Chaotic Good for every edition other than 4e, in which they were inexplicably evil. Interestingly, 3e has them listed as "often' chaotic good ...
The party likely is not 'robbing and murdering,' at least not in most campaigns. If you want to discuss murder hoboes, that would be a different thread. Killing active threats that there is no practical option to capture happens to this day IRL. Killing someone in war or in the legitimate line of duty is usually not considered murder. There are rare exceptions but we are not here to debate those either.
I do not remember any mention of **** in any prior edition. Is that really a theme you need in a game played not just by adults but also by underage kids? On what basis are you arguing any such necessity? You are still free to attribute demonic origins to anything, including humans. Just do not see the necessity.
... The perception of giants in IRL, not the perception of IRL Giants. Giants have been a staple in literature for at least as long as Orcs have, if not moreso. They are an example of many-a-staple creature whose depictions has become more sympathetic over time, such that the role of 'monster' becomes less a mgguffin?/plot device of a consequence for the lesson that disobedience or bad behavior results in; and more a subverted expectaion that the former 'monster' was really just a misunderstood person all along and the 'hero' was in the wrong.
I don't want to argue about whether or not IRL giants are real. Particulalry becaus the term can be applied to human beings with thyroid and/or HGH disorders as similarly as the term Dwarf can be applied Peter Dinklidge. Mythical Giants, perhpas but many of them are from before what we consider to be modern Western Civilization. Re: D&D I typically mean the starting from about medieval paradigm/perception of Giants, and of other beings too from Legeands Folklore and Fairytales -i.e. brothers grimm; right on up to Hans Christian Anderson, Tolkien's Lord of The Rings, Robert E. Howards works, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Perhaps, but for the sake of fantasy it still helpds to maintain a distinction between monsters and people then to justy who's being killed but not murdered because there's no practical option to capture or there is a political excuse such as being at war. It feels cleaner when your opponent is a monster as though you were just hunting game. In some campaigns you don't want the ambiguity. In others you do.
No, I don't actually need those themse, particualry if I was doing a campaing for children vs one for adults. It's just an example of a monstrouse feature formerly associated with their kind. None of these features may be necessary for for the actual gaming; their only possible neccesity is in their role of depicting evil and what evil does. Their attachment to certain creatures over others is part of what drives the perception that those creatures are evil, but these creatures aren't. Leaving these features on Gnolls but removing them from Orcs maintains the distinction that gnolls are evil monsters (in spite of being intelligent), but somehow Orcs aren't anymore - and perhaps never were.
A lot of D&D's lore, particularly the oldest of its lore, comes from the very problematic early days of D&D. Gary Gygax was not a good person--he helped make a wonderful game, but many of his personal beliefs were already antiquated by the 70s and crept into the game itself. He was, philosophically, a self-proclaimed "biological determinist" whose ideas on how race permeated his conceptualization of the game's races and cultures. Not that Gary was the only problem--read some of the early books written by Arnson and others and you'll see a rather heavy-handed reliance on stereotypes. Ernest, Gary's son and the namesake of Tenser (Tenser is an anagram of Ernest), continues to be a problematic game developer to this day, trying to make games that rely on the very same stereotypes that Wizards is trying to excise.
For much of Wizards' history with D&D, they have not taken any action to change the problematic origins of racial tropes in the game. Neither 3e (3.5) or 4e addressed these matters head-on, instead allowing the old stereotypes to remain as fundamental to the game itself. I do not think Wizards did this because Wizards was a racist company--they simply perpetuated the racism created by the game's founders, not considering it was a problem. That is, however, the definition of systemic racism--when a system born in racism is continues not out of racism, but because it has become self-perpetuating and no one thinks to change the underlying problems.
I, for one, am glad that Wizards is taking such a focus with 5e on addressing the systemic problems born of the game's origins. D&D is a wonderful game and everyone should feel welcome playing it. Outdated stereotypes and "biological determinism" hold no place in a game that welcomes members of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity.
I don't understand what the difference is between biological determinism, and ordinary darwinian evolution via natural selection. I also don't quite understand why it's used as the reason for why the common aspects of creatures in D&D is wrong. I don't know what Gary did in 1e, but I'm not arguing that Orcs should be evil because they evolved in the badlands where one naturally developes a harsher outlook on life than creatures who evolved in a forest or grassland. I'm arguing Orcs should be evil because they were created to be evil by an evil god. That's as good an excuse as any to justify common elements in a creature type. In real life I argue everyone was created by the same G'd who does not create anyone evil; but in the fantasy there are multiple gods, many of whom create their own races to serve their interests in the material plane.
I also don't understand why the presence of evil Orcs should discourage participation from players of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity. It's not as if all of those aren't already represented among humans in D&D let alone among Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings of assorted varieties. What is it about playing one of those as a representation of ones race, creed, orientation, or gender identity is not good enough and actually requires an Orc to make one feel adequately represented?
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I don't understand what the difference is between biological determinism, and ordinary darwinian evolution via natural selection. I also don't quite understand why it's used as the reason for why the common aspects of creatures in D&D is wrong.
It's not completely germane to the discussion here about WotC's direction, but it's useful for understanding the game's history. (Fun fact: while it's kinda obvious that biological determinism or essentialism or what have you is pretty core to old-school D&D's design, I was unaware that Gygax straight up espoused it by name, until this thread.)
That's not an honest or fair description of what WotC is doing, or what's happening to society.
If you want to keep playing "cowboys and indians" with your D&D (reskinned as "adventurers and orcs" or whatever), go ahead. That's not an issue. Much like how "I played actual 'cowboys and indians' as a kid" doesn't make you racist.
D&D, historically, has been that game. And in order to make that work, it has/had a bunch of "lore" carefully constructed to justify it. The problem is most modern players (and I'm pretty confident in saying "most") don't want to play something so on-the-nose. So WotC has been evolving D&D's lore so it's not just an elaborate house of cards meant to justify a genocidal wargame.
This has actually been happening over the course of decades. But anyway, WotC is making it easier for other players to play the game other ways, and the market has been rewarding them.
I think it is. I don't believe they would be making such changes if the socio-political climate of the last few years wasn't what it is. I think they would've been comfortable to leave in potentially useful charts for generating illithids and beholders and at best editing some "Always Evil"'s down to "Usually Evils" or some lesser category like "Often Evil" rahter then just desiding not to speak on alignment anymore.
I can see the wisdom in a parent teaching their children what is wrong with "Cowboys and Indians" becuase 'Indians'- indiginous people are real and really had bad things happen to them. I can even see a talk about "cops and robbers" so a kid doesn't grow up thinking it's necessarily alright shoot and kill a robber if they become a cop before taking their immidiate circumstances and other options into account first - robbers also being real human beings.
It's different in fantasy where none of your opponents are actually real. Fantasy is where you can have simple dualism with fights between heroes a definitively evil and monsrous foe. That's the point of it: it's just a fantasy - to have things be simple instead of complex.
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Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
A lot of D&D's lore, particularly the oldest of its lore, comes from the very problematic early days of D&D. Gary Gygax was not a good person--he helped make a wonderful game, but many of his personal beliefs were already antiquated by the 70s and crept into the game itself. He was, philosophically, a self-proclaimed "biological determinist" whose ideas on how race permeated his conceptualization of the game's races and cultures. Not that Gary was the only problem--read some of the early books written by Arnson and others and you'll see a rather heavy-handed reliance on stereotypes. Ernest, Gary's son and the namesake of Tenser (Tenser is an anagram of Ernest), continues to be a problematic game developer to this day, trying to make games that rely on the very same stereotypes that Wizards is trying to excise.
For much of Wizards' history with D&D, they have not taken any action to change the problematic origins of racial tropes in the game. Neither 3e (3.5) or 4e addressed these matters head-on, instead allowing the old stereotypes to remain as fundamental to the game itself. I do not think Wizards did this because Wizards was a racist company--they simply perpetuated the racism created by the game's founders, not considering it was a problem. That is, however, the definition of systemic racism--when a system born in racism is continues not out of racism, but because it has become self-perpetuating and no one thinks to change the underlying problems.
I, for one, am glad that Wizards is taking such a focus with 5e on addressing the systemic problems born of the game's origins. D&D is a wonderful game and everyone should feel welcome playing it. Outdated stereotypes and "biological determinism" hold no place in a game that welcomes members of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity.
I don't understand what the difference is between biological determinism, and ordinary darwinian evolution via natural selection. I also don't quite understand why it's used as the reason for why the common aspects of creatures in D&D is wrong. I don't know what Gary did in 1e, but I'm not arguing that Orcs should be evil because they evolved in the badlands where one naturally developes a harsher outlook on life than creatures who evolved in a forest or grassland. I'm arguing Orcs should be evil because they were created to be evil by an evil god. That's as good an excuse as any to justify common elements in a creature type. In real life I argue everyone was created by the same G'd who does not create anyone evil; but in the fantasy there are multiple gods, many of whom create their own races to serve their interests in the material plane.
I also don't understand why the presence of evil Orcs should discourage participation from players of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity. It's not as if all of those aren't already represented among humans in D&D let alone among Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings of assorted varieties. What is it about playing one of those as a representation of ones race, creed, orientation, or gender identity is not good enough and actually requires an Orc to make one feel adequately represented?
Biological determinism is the belief that behavior itself is encoded into our genes and serves as the basis for the fields of eugenics and other (scientifically unsupported) views that certain races and genders are inferior to others. For example, Gary Gygax once said that females were biologically incapable of "achieving the same level of satisfaction from playing" D&D as males--he believed that women were "evolved" enough to be able to understand the game, but their DNA was hardwired to keep them from fully enjoying it. This is, of course, a disgusting statement and completely unsupported by any science--but it accurately reflects the mistaken ideals of biological determinists. Or, to put it simply, biological determinism is trying to use pseudoscience to justify intolerance--it is surprising how often their "science" always seems to support the bigotry of the person espousing the "facts."
Let's use Orcs as an example of why this is a problem, since Orcs are both the subject of recent errata and one of the more problematic elements of Gygax's worldviews.
Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs. In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity. Gygax and the early D&D crew tried to flesh them out more--he wanted his orcs to be a base and violent race that could be rather antagonistic to the world. So, where did he turn? Stereotyping of Africa.
The early orcs--and the orcs throughout much of D&D's history--are heavily rooted in Western stereotypes of tribal African society. They were described as savages, as being animalistic, destructive, antagonistic to "civilized" society, and lesser in intelligence, charisma, and pretty much every conceivable trait other than physical prowess. The flagrant grounding in stereotype, combined with the very same savage and animalistic imagery used to support real-world hate, and the ingrained "evil" nature of the race is harmful--D&D was essentially writing off something originating in real world culture as an enemy to civilized society.
Simply put, Orcs were born of Gary Gygax and company's racism against tribality societies and heavily based on their racist imagery and their beliefs that "inferior" races could never emotionally rise above their station and genetics. Surely you can see why Wizards might want to change something so abjectly born of the racism.
I don't understand what the difference is between biological determinism, and ordinary darwinian evolution via natural selection.
They're actually incompatible. Practically opposites. Biological determinism says there are aspects to creatures that are inherent and immutable, that environmental influence can't change or overcome. Darwinian evolution is all about environmental influences changing species over time.
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I also don't understand why the presence of evil Orcs should discourage participation from players of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity. It's not as if all of those aren't already represented among humans in D&D let alone among Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings of assorted varieties. What is it about playing one of those as a representation of ones race, creed, orientation, or gender identity is not good enough and actually requires an Orc to make one feel adequately represented?
This has been explained over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER, to the point where many people have given up explaining it, and others assume malice behind anyone else asking it. It has been explained to you, specifically, in this thread. In short, and as a summary:
Some people see the presence of an entire species of people considered 'Lesser', unable to rise above their animalistic instincts and able to do nothing but prey upon the more civilized, intelligent, and pretty peoples of the Realm, and they do not like the f@#$ing connotations. It makes them deeply uncomfortable because that is the EXACT SAME WAY, the EXACT SAME LANGUAGE< and the EXACT SAME JUSTIFICATION that has historically been used to justify racism, up to and including slavery. It does not matter that a bad-guy dickish god made this species that way - the existence of an entire species of less-than-people, disposable and unworthy of care or concern, is exclusionist to the core.
You do not agree. You do not think so. You think that an evil bad-guy dickish god making evil bad-guy dickish people is perfectly valid in a make-believe fantasy world that isn't real anyways. Allow me to clarify something for you. D&D is real. The world of Faerun is fiction; your experiences playing stories with your friends in the world of Faerun are not. Korgoth Bonegnawer the barbarian berserker is fiction; Dave the technician's memories of and experiences with playing Korgoth at the table with his friends are absolutely not fiction. D&D is as real as any other hobby one might take up, and to a great many of us it's quite a bit more dear and real than that. Having that reality fail us, watching the same exclusionism we have to put up with every god damned day in our waking lives, be held up as Cherished Tradition in our gaming is painful.
It hurts, Shepherd. It causes us pain, and for a great many silent, nameless players you'll never hear from here on DDB, it caused them enough pain that they decided this game wasn't meant for them. That it was meant for the Pretties, the Normies, the WASPs, and all the other folk who stoll blissfully through life never having to feel the pain that comes from exclusionism. You are extremely unlikely to understand the pain I feel whenever someone calls me 'sir', and I cannot ever feel the pain of my black friends when they get pulled over by the cops just because they have a nice car and the police keep suspecting it of being stolen. True story - that is a thing that happens regularly to a friend of mine, purely because of his color. We don't need MORE pain in our gaming. That is, in fact, the last thing we need.
Now, in all fairness, I know that it causes you pain to see The Lore Of D&D change. I can't understand that pain, either. I'm new to the game, I have no attachment to the old ways, the old lore, and the old stories. I have to remember that, and I try to keep it in mind whenever I speak to people about this. But quite frankly Shepherd, I am done answering this question. I am done telling people why treating orcs, or drow, or whatever else, exactly the same way racists, bigots, and literal slavers treated people of color in yesteryear - and the way many racists and bigots treat people of color today - is not, in fact, okay. Either you can understand the reasoning or you cannot. You do not have to like it. You do not even have to agree with it. But I will no longer engage with you when you claim not to understand it.
Why only medieval perceptions and specifically those of medieval Europe? Do you insist then that only Christianity should be allowed as a religion? Forgotten Realms is not even Earth and vast sections of the Monster Manual consist of creatures from Greek lore. If one rules out depictions from before the medieval period, then it would be excluding a LOT of the game.
And this goes both ways. Why can't Surface Elves be evil? Why not evil halflings? If you go back to 1e, you can find bits in Dragon Magazine involving the Halfling Thieves' Guild (in Wormy, I think).
I do not remember Has Christian Anderson writing about any giants... Tolkien, Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burrows wrote in the 20th century... And I do not remember any giants in the writings of either of the last two. Ents are essentially wood giants and Tolkien had both good and neutral/evil versions.
That very "They are (just) monsters' thing is the heart of this, though. Labelling any group evil because 'they are not us' is problematic. Even in fiction. It can be ok on an in character thing as a societal racism as an adversarial theme to overcome but there is WAY too much labelling and vilifying in real life.
Because otherwise you're right and I'm wrong ;-P. One of the things that happened in those times was basically the reskinning of formerly good creatures of myth and legeand as evil i.e using the imige of Pan as the image of Satan. Let's not bring religion into it. It's enough we've politics already. That's a good question though, I do always seem to tend to imagine the setting as a fantasized version of medieval Europe. I've included things from other sourcebooks in my time such as Oriental Advantures; but I've never thought to do a campaign in a straight up other setting than a medieval European type setting.
Surface elves can be Evil. An evil surface Elf, works the same way in my campaigns as a good Drow. A surface elf is usually, but not always chaotic good; but every-so-often a wizard will experiment with sommoning demons or what not, acquire some power of a corrupting nature, and turn out to be the main boss villain of an adventure or the campaign. Halflings can be evil too. They can head up Assassins guilds, thieves guilds, etc. but they too shouldn't to my mind be in equal proportion within their society as neutral or good halflings. Halflings 'tend' to be / are typically LG and ones who aren't are an exception to the rule rather than a generic example of Halfling society. There are also cannabalistic halfling in one of my old adventure modules. There's nothing wrong with characters who break the mold; but it's another thing to remove the mold entirely.
I don't know if Hanse wrote anything specifically about giants, but he wrote down some the circulating fairy tales of his time and place in a similar manner as the Brothers Grimm did. We (modern society) like to credit Tolkien with being the father of modern fantasy genre, which perhaps is true, but he and some of contemporaries such as C.S. Lewis did use older lore to inform some of their writing. They didn't completely make up the character types they were working with. Previous 19th century writers like Hans were responsible for aggregating some of that lore into single refrencable sources in the form of their own stories.
I agree it is the heart of the problem.
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I also don't understand why the presence of evil Orcs should discourage participation from players of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity. It's not as if all of those aren't already represented among humans in D&D let alone among Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings of assorted varieties. What is it about playing one of those as a representation of ones race, creed, orientation, or gender identity is not good enough and actually requires an Orc to make one feel adequately represented?
You should know that it's not just orcs, but that they are definitely a sore spot.
I don't understand what the difference is between biological determinism, and ordinary darwinian evolution via natural selection. I also don't quite understand why it's used as the reason for why the common aspects of creatures in D&D is wrong.
It's not completely germane to the discussion here about WotC's direction, but it's useful for understanding the game's history. (Fun fact: while it's kinda obvious that biological determinism or essentialism or what have you is pretty core to old-school D&D's design, I was unaware that Gygax straight up espoused it by name, until this thread.)
Thank you. It says that the idea that genetics is soley or not at all responsible for human behavior has been replaced by one where both contribute to human behavior through something called epigenetics. <reads more> okay. I can see how biological determinism is incorrect as regards being a source of differing behavior amongst humans. Do generalizations of behavior between different species fall into this concept?
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Biological determinism is the belief that behavior itself is encoded into our genes and serves as the basis for the fields of eugenics and other (scientifically unsupported) views that certain races and genders are inferior to others. For example, Gary Gygax once said that females were biologically incapable of "achieving the same level of satisfaction from playing" D&D as males--he believed that women were "evolved" enough to be able to understand the game, but their DNA was hardwired to keep them from fully enjoying it. This is, of course, a disgusting statement and completely unsupported by any science--but it accurately reflects the mistaken ideals of biological determinists. Or, to put it simply, biological determinism is trying to use pseudoscience to justify intolerance--it is surprising how often their "science" always seems to support the bigotry of the person espousing the "facts."
Let's use Orcs as an example of why this is a problem, since Orcs are both the subject of recent errata and one of the more problematic elements of Gygax's worldviews.
Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs. In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity. Gygax and the early D&D crew tried to flesh them out more--he wanted his orcs to be a base and violent race that could be rather antagonistic to the world. So, where did he turn? Stereotyping of Africa.
The early orcs--and the orcs throughout much of D&D's history--are heavily rooted in Western stereotypes of tribal African society. They were described as savages, as being animalistic, destructive, antagonistic to "civilized" society, and lesser in intelligence, charisma, and pretty much every conceivable trait other than physical prowess. The flagrant grounding in stereotype, combined with the very same savage and animalistic imagery used to support real-world hate, and the ingrained "evil" nature of the race is harmful--D&D was essentially writing off something originating in real world culture as an enemy to civilized society.
Simply put, Orcs were born of Gary Gygax and company's racism against tribality societies and heavily based on their racist imagery and their beliefs that "inferior" races could never emotionally rise above their station and genetics. Surely you can see why Wizards might want to change something so abjectly born of the racism.
Yeah, that's wrong of him. I have women in the party now who seem to be enjoying the game. It sounds as no surprise if women didn't enjoy his version of the game at the time.
Alright. So how do I reconcile this part: Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs. In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity. with all of the rest of that?
I presume tolkiens Orcs were not based on stereotypes, but on those older fairy-tales. I don't want my orcs to be a reflection on African Stereotypes; so removing Gary's fleshing is a good thing; but I do want them to be the product of an evil entity, in this case Gruumsh rather than Sauron, and basically behave like Tolkiens Orcs; which did seem to have some of those traits; even before Gary's fleshing them out.
How much of the Fairy-tale sources that informed tolkiens origonal iteration of Orcs are a product of, shall we call it, a victorian view on other human races, versus what the fairy-creature was actually supposed to have been like that just also happened to have things in common with the stereotypes, like cannibalism and territoriality and similar such traits?
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In Forgotten Realms, maybe Orcs were made by an evil god. However does that mean that humans are good if made by a good god, and cannot be otherwise? In Tolkien's writings, Orcs were supposedly made from captured Elves rather than created from scratch. We do not really see Orc society without Sauron or Melkor around and both were literally there in Middle Earth directly meddling. Are Ukuk-Hai evil by nature? They are literally half orcs and made by Saruman, who was, at the time, still at least nominally on the good side.
But what if you are not playing Forgotten Realms at all? You almost certainly are not playing Middle Earth.
Meanwhile... and let me repeat this again, which people have been pointing out this entire thread.... you can still have evil Orcs! Nothing in the new wording says you cannot have evil Orcs! Nothing in the new wording says that you cannot have entire societies of evil Orcs. Nothing says you cannot have evil Orc civilizations, entire evil Orc empires....
These are things you can still do!
What the new wording is saying is, essentially, that it is not some sort of blasphemy (against Gruumsh or against Gygax or against anyone or anything else) if there are non-evil Orcs in your world too. And there are no campaign police going to check on how you portray Orcs.
I don't have a lot of other sources to work with right now. I don't have the money to unlock a bunch of other stuff in one go. I'm unlocking things piece by piece. When I bring a book down 2.99 then I buy the rest of it and can read it. I don't really know who made humans in D&D. Humans usually had the alignment tag (any) as part of the whole versatility theme, and can be the most monstrously behaved of all. Weren't the Red Wizards of Thay human? We never do see Orc society after Sauron. Tolkien was supposedly writing a sequal but then changed his mind and gave it up.
No, but someone also said another true thing which is that if Evil Orcs is so terrible a concept, then it does become a problem my having evil Orcs. I don't want people I present with a randomly rolled encounter of Evil Orcs, to be seeing a refelction of african stereotypes and feeling uncomfortable. I want them to be seeing a big green monster and shouting their battlecries and charging at their foe with a smile.
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How much of the Fairy-tale sources that informed tolkiens origonal iteration of Orcs are a product of, shall we call it, a victorian view on other human races, versus what the fairy-creature was actually supposed to have been like that just also happened to have things in common with the stereotypes, like cannibalism and territoriality and similar such traits?
That's a fruitless question. If you were to write an original piece of fiction today, how much of it is informed by the culture you were raised in and how much of it is "original?" Impossible to say and a misdirection from the point. You cannot possibly do any sort of percentage delineation of what is derivative or not and besides the point is not about how much of it is derived from what source, but rather the effects it has on the audience and as such the responsibility creators have to their fanbase.
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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!
They're actually incompatible. Practically opposites. Biological determinism says there are aspects to creatures that are inherent and immutable, that environmental influence can't change or overcome. Darwinian evolution is all about environmental influences changing species over time.
-nods. That does seem to be the way of it. There is no such thing as immutable biology. Biology is in a constant state of change and it is environment that determines what changes stick and which ones fail to take root.
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I can see how biological determinism is incorrect as regards being a source of differing behavior amongst humans. Do generalizations of behavior between different species fall into this concept?
That link references classical thinking about god(s) creating things to be certain ways, which could be relevant to D&D, or at least will, no doubt, get commented on. We don't need to fall, once again, into that rat hole. Remember that what's being discussed here is what WotC is actually doing, which isn't really a philosophical choice so much as a business decision --- they're making the game more amenable to different styles of game.
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That's not an honest or fair description of what WotC is doing, or what's happening to society.
If you want to keep playing "cowboys and indians" with your D&D (reskinned as "adventurers and orcs" or whatever), go ahead. That's not an issue. Much like how "I played actual 'cowboys and indians' as a kid" doesn't make you racist.
D&D, historically, has been that game. And in order to make that work, it has/had a bunch of "lore" carefully constructed to justify it. The problem is most modern players (and I'm pretty confident in saying "most") don't want to play something so on-the-nose. So WotC has been evolving D&D's lore so it's not just an elaborate house of cards meant to justify a genocidal wargame.
This has actually been happening over the course of decades. But anyway, WotC is making it easier for other players to play the game other ways, and the market has been rewarding them.
That's because it's the truth. I apologize for not staying on topic, but I feel this is something that needs reiterating whenever and wherever it comes up. All of our societies and every institution in them are built with racist foundations and have always been, among other types of bigotry. Racism is something that humans only relatively recently have discovered is a bad thing and which we have not yet discovered how not to be. And I'm not just speaking from an academic point of view, as a person of color I've become used to dealing with tiny examples of it every day whether it be school, or work, or dealing with the government, etc etc etc. When we learn better, we should strive to be better. Problem is that we don't have an example of a human society that is free of bigotry so we are all in the dark about this, just trying our best.
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!
Thank you!
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
It seems the real issue that has caused so much frustration, and which we have been circling for a few pages now, has finally revealed itself. That is a yikes from me.
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A lot of D&D's lore, particularly the oldest of its lore, comes from the very problematic early days of D&D. Gary Gygax was not a good person--he helped make a wonderful game, but many of his personal beliefs were already antiquated by the 70s and crept into the game itself. He was, philosophically, a self-proclaimed "biological determinist" whose ideas on how race permeated his conceptualization of the game's races and cultures. Not that Gary was the only problem--read some of the early books written by Arnson and others and you'll see a rather heavy-handed reliance on stereotypes. Ernest, Gary's son and the namesake of Tenser (Tenser is an anagram of Ernest), continues to be a problematic game developer to this day, trying to make games that rely on the very same stereotypes that Wizards is trying to excise.
For much of Wizards' history with D&D, they have not taken any action to change the problematic origins of racial tropes in the game. Neither 3e (3.5) or 4e addressed these matters head-on, instead allowing the old stereotypes to remain as fundamental to the game itself. I do not think Wizards did this because Wizards was a racist company--they simply perpetuated the racism created by the game's founders, not considering it was a problem. That is, however, the definition of systemic racism--when a system born in racism is continues not out of racism, but because it has become self-perpetuating and no one thinks to change the underlying problems.
I, for one, am glad that Wizards is taking such a focus with 5e on addressing the systemic problems born of the game's origins. D&D is a wonderful game and everyone should feel welcome playing it. Outdated stereotypes and "biological determinism" hold no place in a game that welcomes members of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity.
... The perception of giants in IRL, not the perception of IRL Giants. Giants have been a staple in literature for at least as long as Orcs have, if not moreso. They are an example of many-a-staple creature whose depictions has become more sympathetic over time, such that the role of 'monster' becomes less a mgguffin?/plot device of a consequence for the lesson that disobedience or bad behavior results in; and more a subverted expectaion that the former 'monster' was really just a misunderstood person all along and the 'hero' was in the wrong.
I don't want to argue about whether or not IRL giants are real. Particulalry becaus the term can be applied to human beings with thyroid and/or HGH disorders as similarly as the term Dwarf can be applied Peter Dinklidge. Mythical Giants, perhpas but many of them are from before what we consider to be modern Western Civilization. Re: D&D I typically mean the starting from about medieval paradigm/perception of Giants, and of other beings too from Legeands Folklore and Fairytales -i.e. brothers grimm; right on up to Hans Christian Anderson, Tolkien's Lord of The Rings, Robert E. Howards works, Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Perhaps, but for the sake of fantasy it still helpds to maintain a distinction between monsters and people then to justy who's being killed but not murdered because there's no practical option to capture or there is a political excuse such as being at war. It feels cleaner when your opponent is a monster as though you were just hunting game. In some campaigns you don't want the ambiguity. In others you do.
No, I don't actually need those themse, particualry if I was doing a campaing for children vs one for adults. It's just an example of a monstrouse feature formerly associated with their kind. None of these features may be necessary for for the actual gaming; their only possible neccesity is in their role of depicting evil and what evil does. Their attachment to certain creatures over others is part of what drives the perception that those creatures are evil, but these creatures aren't. Leaving these features on Gnolls but removing them from Orcs maintains the distinction that gnolls are evil monsters (in spite of being intelligent), but somehow Orcs aren't anymore - and perhaps never were.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
I don't understand what the difference is between biological determinism, and ordinary darwinian evolution via natural selection. I also don't quite understand why it's used as the reason for why the common aspects of creatures in D&D is wrong. I don't know what Gary did in 1e, but I'm not arguing that Orcs should be evil because they evolved in the badlands where one naturally developes a harsher outlook on life than creatures who evolved in a forest or grassland. I'm arguing Orcs should be evil because they were created to be evil by an evil god. That's as good an excuse as any to justify common elements in a creature type. In real life I argue everyone was created by the same G'd who does not create anyone evil; but in the fantasy there are multiple gods, many of whom create their own races to serve their interests in the material plane.
I also don't understand why the presence of evil Orcs should discourage participation from players of every race, creed, orientation, or gender identity. It's not as if all of those aren't already represented among humans in D&D let alone among Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings of assorted varieties. What is it about playing one of those as a representation of ones race, creed, orientation, or gender identity is not good enough and actually requires an Orc to make one feel adequately represented?
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_determinism
It's not completely germane to the discussion here about WotC's direction, but it's useful for understanding the game's history. (Fun fact: while it's kinda obvious that biological determinism or essentialism or what have you is pretty core to old-school D&D's design, I was unaware that Gygax straight up espoused it by name, until this thread.)
I think it is. I don't believe they would be making such changes if the socio-political climate of the last few years wasn't what it is. I think they would've been comfortable to leave in potentially useful charts for generating illithids and beholders and at best editing some "Always Evil"'s down to "Usually Evils" or some lesser category like "Often Evil" rahter then just desiding not to speak on alignment anymore.
I can see the wisdom in a parent teaching their children what is wrong with "Cowboys and Indians" becuase 'Indians'- indiginous people are real and really had bad things happen to them. I can even see a talk about "cops and robbers" so a kid doesn't grow up thinking it's necessarily alright shoot and kill a robber if they become a cop before taking their immidiate circumstances and other options into account first - robbers also being real human beings.
It's different in fantasy where none of your opponents are actually real. Fantasy is where you can have simple dualism with fights between heroes a definitively evil and monsrous foe. That's the point of it: it's just a fantasy - to have things be simple instead of complex.
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Biological determinism is the belief that behavior itself is encoded into our genes and serves as the basis for the fields of eugenics and other (scientifically unsupported) views that certain races and genders are inferior to others. For example, Gary Gygax once said that females were biologically incapable of "achieving the same level of satisfaction from playing" D&D as males--he believed that women were "evolved" enough to be able to understand the game, but their DNA was hardwired to keep them from fully enjoying it. This is, of course, a disgusting statement and completely unsupported by any science--but it accurately reflects the mistaken ideals of biological determinists. Or, to put it simply, biological determinism is trying to use pseudoscience to justify intolerance--it is surprising how often their "science" always seems to support the bigotry of the person espousing the "facts."
Let's use Orcs as an example of why this is a problem, since Orcs are both the subject of recent errata and one of the more problematic elements of Gygax's worldviews.
Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs. In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity. Gygax and the early D&D crew tried to flesh them out more--he wanted his orcs to be a base and violent race that could be rather antagonistic to the world. So, where did he turn? Stereotyping of Africa.
The early orcs--and the orcs throughout much of D&D's history--are heavily rooted in Western stereotypes of tribal African society. They were described as savages, as being animalistic, destructive, antagonistic to "civilized" society, and lesser in intelligence, charisma, and pretty much every conceivable trait other than physical prowess. The flagrant grounding in stereotype, combined with the very same savage and animalistic imagery used to support real-world hate, and the ingrained "evil" nature of the race is harmful--D&D was essentially writing off something originating in real world culture as an enemy to civilized society.
Simply put, Orcs were born of Gary Gygax and company's racism against tribality societies and heavily based on their racist imagery and their beliefs that "inferior" races could never emotionally rise above their station and genetics. Surely you can see why Wizards might want to change something so abjectly born of the racism.
They're actually incompatible. Practically opposites. Biological determinism says there are aspects to creatures that are inherent and immutable, that environmental influence can't change or overcome. Darwinian evolution is all about environmental influences changing species over time.
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This has been explained over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER, to the point where many people have given up explaining it, and others assume malice behind anyone else asking it. It has been explained to you, specifically, in this thread. In short, and as a summary:
Some people see the presence of an entire species of people considered 'Lesser', unable to rise above their animalistic instincts and able to do nothing but prey upon the more civilized, intelligent, and pretty peoples of the Realm, and they do not like the f@#$ing connotations. It makes them deeply uncomfortable because that is the EXACT SAME WAY, the EXACT SAME LANGUAGE< and the EXACT SAME JUSTIFICATION that has historically been used to justify racism, up to and including slavery. It does not matter that a bad-guy dickish god made this species that way - the existence of an entire species of less-than-people, disposable and unworthy of care or concern, is exclusionist to the core.
You do not agree. You do not think so. You think that an evil bad-guy dickish god making evil bad-guy dickish people is perfectly valid in a make-believe fantasy world that isn't real anyways. Allow me to clarify something for you. D&D is real. The world of Faerun is fiction; your experiences playing stories with your friends in the world of Faerun are not. Korgoth Bonegnawer the barbarian berserker is fiction; Dave the technician's memories of and experiences with playing Korgoth at the table with his friends are absolutely not fiction. D&D is as real as any other hobby one might take up, and to a great many of us it's quite a bit more dear and real than that. Having that reality fail us, watching the same exclusionism we have to put up with every god damned day in our waking lives, be held up as Cherished Tradition in our gaming is painful.
It hurts, Shepherd. It causes us pain, and for a great many silent, nameless players you'll never hear from here on DDB, it caused them enough pain that they decided this game wasn't meant for them. That it was meant for the Pretties, the Normies, the WASPs, and all the other folk who stoll blissfully through life never having to feel the pain that comes from exclusionism. You are extremely unlikely to understand the pain I feel whenever someone calls me 'sir', and I cannot ever feel the pain of my black friends when they get pulled over by the cops just because they have a nice car and the police keep suspecting it of being stolen. True story - that is a thing that happens regularly to a friend of mine, purely because of his color. We don't need MORE pain in our gaming. That is, in fact, the last thing we need.
Now, in all fairness, I know that it causes you pain to see The Lore Of D&D change. I can't understand that pain, either. I'm new to the game, I have no attachment to the old ways, the old lore, and the old stories. I have to remember that, and I try to keep it in mind whenever I speak to people about this. But quite frankly Shepherd, I am done answering this question. I am done telling people why treating orcs, or drow, or whatever else, exactly the same way racists, bigots, and literal slavers treated people of color in yesteryear - and the way many racists and bigots treat people of color today - is not, in fact, okay. Either you can understand the reasoning or you cannot. You do not have to like it. You do not even have to agree with it. But I will no longer engage with you when you claim not to understand it.
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Because otherwise you're right and I'm wrong ;-P. One of the things that happened in those times was basically the reskinning of formerly good creatures of myth and legeand as evil i.e using the imige of Pan as the image of Satan. Let's not bring religion into it. It's enough we've politics already. That's a good question though, I do always seem to tend to imagine the setting as a fantasized version of medieval Europe. I've included things from other sourcebooks in my time such as Oriental Advantures; but I've never thought to do a campaign in a straight up other setting than a medieval European type setting.
Surface elves can be Evil. An evil surface Elf, works the same way in my campaigns as a good Drow. A surface elf is usually, but not always chaotic good; but every-so-often a wizard will experiment with sommoning demons or what not, acquire some power of a corrupting nature, and turn out to be the main boss villain of an adventure or the campaign. Halflings can be evil too. They can head up Assassins guilds, thieves guilds, etc. but they too shouldn't to my mind be in equal proportion within their society as neutral or good halflings. Halflings 'tend' to be / are typically LG and ones who aren't are an exception to the rule rather than a generic example of Halfling society. There are also cannabalistic halfling in one of my old adventure modules. There's nothing wrong with characters who break the mold; but it's another thing to remove the mold entirely.
I don't know if Hanse wrote anything specifically about giants, but he wrote down some the circulating fairy tales of his time and place in a similar manner as the Brothers Grimm did. We (modern society) like to credit Tolkien with being the father of modern fantasy genre, which perhaps is true, but he and some of contemporaries such as C.S. Lewis did use older lore to inform some of their writing. They didn't completely make up the character types they were working with. Previous 19th century writers like Hans were responsible for aggregating some of that lore into single refrencable sources in the form of their own stories.
I agree it is the heart of the problem.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
You should know that it's not just orcs, but that they are definitely a sore spot.
Here is an account form another poster on this forum about the portrayal of orcs and half orcs caused him to shy away from playing D&D at all upon his first encounter.
Here is an author speaking about how the portrayal of orcs hits upon a lot of racist tropes and imagery that are painful to people.
In a similar, but not specifically orc or D&D related post, here is me talking about how the portrayal of the fictional people in Star Wars affected me.
Here are me and another member talking about how it's not us being "offended on behalf of fictional people" but that there are actual harms caused by harmful language.
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!
Thank you. It says that the idea that genetics is soley or not at all responsible for human behavior has been replaced by one where both contribute to human behavior through something called epigenetics. <reads more> okay. I can see how biological determinism is incorrect as regards being a source of differing behavior amongst humans. Do generalizations of behavior between different species fall into this concept?
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Yeah, that's wrong of him. I have women in the party now who seem to be enjoying the game. It sounds as no surprise if women didn't enjoy his version of the game at the time.
Alright. So how do I reconcile this part: Early Orcs were based in part on Tolkien's evil orcs. In Tolkien, the orcs were specifically twisted by dark magics and bred specifically to be evil by an evil entity. with all of the rest of that?
I presume tolkiens Orcs were not based on stereotypes, but on those older fairy-tales. I don't want my orcs to be a reflection on African Stereotypes; so removing Gary's fleshing is a good thing; but I do want them to be the product of an evil entity, in this case Gruumsh rather than Sauron, and basically behave like Tolkiens Orcs; which did seem to have some of those traits; even before Gary's fleshing them out.
How much of the Fairy-tale sources that informed tolkiens origonal iteration of Orcs are a product of, shall we call it, a victorian view on other human races, versus what the fairy-creature was actually supposed to have been like that just also happened to have things in common with the stereotypes, like cannibalism and territoriality and similar such traits?
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
I don't have a lot of other sources to work with right now. I don't have the money to unlock a bunch of other stuff in one go. I'm unlocking things piece by piece. When I bring a book down 2.99 then I buy the rest of it and can read it. I don't really know who made humans in D&D. Humans usually had the alignment tag (any) as part of the whole versatility theme, and can be the most monstrously behaved of all. Weren't the Red Wizards of Thay human? We never do see Orc society after Sauron. Tolkien was supposedly writing a sequal but then changed his mind and gave it up.
No, but someone also said another true thing which is that if Evil Orcs is so terrible a concept, then it does become a problem my having evil Orcs. I don't want people I present with a randomly rolled encounter of Evil Orcs, to be seeing a refelction of african stereotypes and feeling uncomfortable. I want them to be seeing a big green monster and shouting their battlecries and charging at their foe with a smile.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
That's a fruitless question. If you were to write an original piece of fiction today, how much of it is informed by the culture you were raised in and how much of it is "original?" Impossible to say and a misdirection from the point. You cannot possibly do any sort of percentage delineation of what is derivative or not and besides the point is not about how much of it is derived from what source, but rather the effects it has on the audience and as such the responsibility creators have to their fanbase.
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!
-nods. That does seem to be the way of it. There is no such thing as immutable biology. Biology is in a constant state of change and it is environment that determines what changes stick and which ones fail to take root.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Kind of (we're playing fast-and-loose with terminology here): https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/species/#DeatEsse
That link references classical thinking about god(s) creating things to be certain ways, which could be relevant to D&D, or at least will, no doubt, get commented on. We don't need to fall, once again, into that rat hole. Remember that what's being discussed here is what WotC is actually doing, which isn't really a philosophical choice so much as a business decision --- they're making the game more amenable to different styles of game.