This is veering a bit into off-topic, but I think it hits at the ultimate issue of the thread--specifically whether players should or should not be upset over the changes and whether the changes are good for the game. A lot of Wizards' decision is based in the research on sociology and mental health, and the numerous studies suggesting racial stereotyping in fiction can be harmful, particularly to marginalized groups. As such, I think discussing the scientific research and the methodology therefor is relevant and constructive to the underlying thread, since it is clearly informing Wizards' motivations in making the changes.
One of my undergraduate degrees was in sociology--the very field this article dismisses. Speaking as someone who has spent a lot of time in the field, both conducting independent research and reading the research of others, I can confirm--the entire field is kind of BS. Your article is right--a lot of the results are hard to replicate and are susceptible to flaws in methodology.
Everyone in the field knows this and that is the exact reason we have peer reviewed studies, multiple studies on the same topic, and constant re-evaluating of the data and methods used in prior research. That is also why just so much work has been done in the particular field of stereotyping, including stereotyping in fiction--it is too important a topic to base on a few, potentially flawed experiments.
The simple reality is that there are not one or two or three studies that show "stereotypes in fiction both reinforce held negative stereotypes and cause issues for those marginalized by the stereotypes"--there are dozens upon dozens upon dozens. A few studies could be the result of a fluke or the general flaws inherent in a field that studies something we can never truly see--the inside human's minds--but the volume of studies all pointing in the same direction, even with dozens of different factors accounted and normalized for, indicate that there IS an actual relationship between the stereotyping in fiction and negative outcomes.
Your article misses the point. Experiments being disproven is not evidence that the system does not work--it is evidence that the system is working exactly as intended, verifying or disproving results with future research.
At the risk of going off topic, despite issues with how some scientific studies are conducted, I'd rather place my "faith" in science than any belief system. That being said, I respect your right to believe as you wish.
I didn't check yet, I was busy trying to see if this forum has a limit of characters you can post and looking at the mythology of orcs and their cannibalistic and evil tendencies, and I was looking at other stuff too that involved those.
Anyway besides that, I think you said before that exclusionism towards orcs was good if they were chaotic evil, and I think some other people in the forum skipped the middle part from animal intelligence to human level intelligence, and discounted psycopathy and other things, like the origin of the orcs and their habits.
Going to keep it really simple; yes, they are. In D&D at any rate. They're sentient beings with a civilization and culture of their own. They are a playable race. They're people.
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To those who believe that the alignment and racial changes to the game are right and fair, I suggest pondering the following questions:
Who gets to decide what racial sensitivities are “acceptable”? Are racial sensitivities open to all races, or just some?
If a person believes that making accommodations to individual, racial, or cultural sensitivities is unnecessary or counter-productive, does it necessarily mean they are insensitive or unsympathetic?
What other solutions are there to sensitivities? Assimilation? Increased tolerance of others and their words/opinions?
What might be the dangers of a game (or other company/media outlet/etc.) “picking a side”? Could it lead to further division?
As for alignment, I suggest we remain a Lawful Good nation 😊 Be kind, be respectful, keep discourse alive, and don’t escalate. Differences of opinion regarding how best to alleviate suffering and sensitivity are just that – not negative reflections on a person’s character. Let's focus on the ties that bind us not the differences that divide us.
I am pleasantly surprised by this post, and I see quite a lot of merit in it. Allow me to try and engage, as an experiment if nothing else.
1.) I would argue that an individual gets to decide, for them and their table. My firm belief is that the goal of the base books, in this case, should be neutrality, and where neutrality is not possible the books should strive to avoid common, proven pitfalls. That is the goal of sensitivity readers and consultants - who, despite common beliefs otherwise, do also keep in mind the viewpoints and needs of majority peoples. It's their job to reduce friction, and pandering to minorities at the direct, needless expense of the majority does not accomplish this.
I don't know if this is an appropriate answer as I'm not entirely certain of the intent of the question, but it's a good thought experiment regardless. I can only answer for myself of course, and if clarifications to the question are offered I'll do my best to address them, but the intent of the tools in this case ("the tools" being the books) should generally be to make them as neutral and accessible as is reasonably feasible. The word "reasonably" is there quite deliberately, and what is reasonable will vary wildly from table to table, but it's something to keep in mind.
2.) I do not believe so, no. My patience has been sorely tested in this thread and I've come off as quite harsh more than once, but no. Someone who believes accommodation is unnecessary - or, more commonly, believes that sufficient accomodation has already been made and further accommodation would needlessly erode the spirit of the game for margnial-at-best benefit - is not intrinsically insensitive or unsympathetic. Such individuals do have a tendency to dig in their heels and make themselves quite difficult to sympathize with in turn, as ever it has thus been when conservative-minded folk push back against efforts to change, alter, or dispense with Tradition. This can lead to severe friction and frustration, and often has the unfortunate effect of lessening sensivitity and empathy on both sides. I know I am done with explaining to people how certain stereotypical traditions of D&D closely map to modern-day exclusionism and why that's harmful, just as I imagine they're equally done with trying to explain why pretend monsters in their make-believe game of imaginary elves and fictitious flying lizards should not have any bearing on what happens outside Game Night.
It's an issue of fundamental difference in premises; Side A's logic and arguments make perfect sense if you believe Premise Set 1, but Side B looks at Premise Set 1 and wonders what, exactly, Side A has been smoking. They're either baffled by Premise Set 1 or vehemently disagree with it, and in many cases are outright hostile to Premise Set 1. When two sides of an argument cannot agree on even the most basic premises of that argument, the argument is doomed to failure and becomes a drain on the mental and emotional resources of everyone involved...but we're all so invested in our positions that we can't help but have that argument anyways.
3.) This is a pretty fantastic place to speak on something I've been meaning to find a way to talk about on these forums forever. There's a lot of folks slinging terms like "woke", "leftthink", and similarly perjorative terms around, with the clear and obvious insinuation that they do not believe those they sling the terms at have any merit. In short, crude summation: they do not believe in people's feelings or the idea that one can offer offense unintentionally and without rancor. "You'll ******* know when I offend you" is a common rejoinder elsewhere on the Internet, as is "offense is never given, it's taken". This shows a deep lack of understanding of what "woke" actually means and the methodology behind consideration.
My answer, and my proposal for any table - and indeed, anyone who has to navigate people's emotions in real life - is to understand that it is impossible to avoid giving offense. You just can't do it. You WILL step on someone else's feelings and cause pain at times, it's as unavoidable as accidentally running into other people in a crowded market. When it happens? You're not a bad person. You did nothing evil. Rather than getting defensive and try to persist, all you do is acknowledge that you touched on a sore spot you didn't know was there, back up, and promise to do better in the future. The person who got stepped on should, in turn, acknowledge that it was an innocent mistake with no malice behind it, accept the apology graciously, and move on. Someone who gets hissy and spitty and snarls at folks on a first offense is being a jerk, just the same way that somebody who deliberately keeps stomping on sore spots they bloody well know are there is being a jerk. Nevertheless. Learning how to properly handle accidental offense and how to respect boundaries and others' personal experiences is a critical life skill in the modern era that will also greatly ease your time playing at the table.
4.) I don't really know as there's any dangers beyond what we're already seeing, re:tribalism and Us vs. Them-ing. If the playerbase continues to split, there's not much Wizards can really do - the more drastic people get in their differences the harder it becomes to thread the needle, and the company is NOT very responsive. They can only move so quickly, and that speed is so much slower than the customer base they're trying to keep up with. If they stray too far one way, then there's the obvious danger of 4e-ing themselves again and having an edition fail. That's the big one, really - if they go too far one way or the other, they can fall off the line entirely and disillusion the entire fanbase.
That's a drastic result though, and I'm not sure I can really overstate how much of a game-changer modern streaming shows are. Critical Role is the big one, but there are hundreds of others, and they're such an enormous multiplier on the game's reach that Wizards has been struggling to keep up. The main route to Getting Into D&D(C) has always been "somebody at the table invites you to watch, you get interested, and you end up playing." Well, now people can invite millions of other people to the table to watch, all at once, and it's giving the hobby reach like it's never had before. That's going to come with shifts in the aggregate Will Of The Playerbase; you don't get to explode the way 5e has without changes along the way. The dangers of not picking a side could be leaving millions of potential customers frozen out of your product. I don't think that's at all likely - but a fifty year old property that has historically been highly resistant to change doesn't really get to suddenly attract an enormous new audience of primarily younger, modern fans with modern sensibilities in the space of maybe half a decade and still strenuously resist any and all efforts to modernize. there are certainly dangers in Too Far, Too Fast...but there's also dangers in Not Far Enough.
Anyways. Thank you for the interesting hypothetical, and hopefully your words end up seen by more than just the small handful of diehards clinging to this thread.
(prior quotes omitted).
This is veering a bit into off-topic, but I think it hits at the ultimate issue of the thread--specifically whether players should or should not be upset over the changes and whether the changes are good for the game. A lot of Wizards' decision is based in the research on sociology and mental health, and the numerous studies suggesting racial stereotyping in fiction can be harmful, particularly to marginalized groups. As such, I think discussing the scientific research and the methodology therefor is relevant and constructive to the underlying thread, since it is clearly informing Wizards' motivations in making the changes.
One of my undergraduate degrees was in sociology--the very field this article dismisses. Speaking as someone who has spent a lot of time in the field, both conducting independent research and reading the research of others, I can confirm--the entire field is kind of BS. Your article is right--a lot of the results are hard to replicate and are susceptible to flaws in methodology.
Everyone in the field knows this and that is the exact reason we have peer reviewed studies, multiple studies on the same topic, and constant re-evaluating of the data and methods used in prior research. That is also why just so much work has been done in the particular field of stereotyping, including stereotyping in fiction--it is too important a topic to base on a few, potentially flawed experiments.
The simple reality is that there are not one or two or three studies that show "stereotypes in fiction both reinforce held negative stereotypes and cause issues for those marginalized by the stereotypes"--there are dozens upon dozens upon dozens. A few studies could be the result of a fluke or the general flaws inherent in a field that studies something we can never truly see--the inside human's minds--but the volume of studies all pointing in the same direction, even with dozens of different factors accounted and normalized for, indicate that there IS an actual relationship between the stereotyping in fiction and negative outcomes.
Your article misses the point. Experiments being disproven is not evidence that the system does not work--it is evidence that the system is working exactly as intended, verifying or disproving results with future research.
I'm not sure what you mean by that?
I didn't check yet, I was busy trying to see if this forum has a limit of characters you can post and looking at the mythology of orcs and their cannibalistic and evil tendencies, and I was looking at other stuff too that involved those.
Anyway besides that, I think you said before that exclusionism towards orcs was good if they were chaotic evil, and I think some other people in the forum skipped the middle part from animal intelligence to human level intelligence, and discounted psycopathy and other things, like the origin of the orcs and their habits.
Going to keep it really simple; yes, they are. In D&D at any rate. They're sentient beings with a civilization and culture of their own. They are a playable race. They're people.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I am pleasantly surprised by this post, and I see quite a lot of merit in it. Allow me to try and engage, as an experiment if nothing else.
1.) I would argue that an individual gets to decide, for them and their table. My firm belief is that the goal of the base books, in this case, should be neutrality, and where neutrality is not possible the books should strive to avoid common, proven pitfalls. That is the goal of sensitivity readers and consultants - who, despite common beliefs otherwise, do also keep in mind the viewpoints and needs of majority peoples. It's their job to reduce friction, and pandering to minorities at the direct, needless expense of the majority does not accomplish this.
I don't know if this is an appropriate answer as I'm not entirely certain of the intent of the question, but it's a good thought experiment regardless. I can only answer for myself of course, and if clarifications to the question are offered I'll do my best to address them, but the intent of the tools in this case ("the tools" being the books) should generally be to make them as neutral and accessible as is reasonably feasible. The word "reasonably" is there quite deliberately, and what is reasonable will vary wildly from table to table, but it's something to keep in mind.
2.) I do not believe so, no. My patience has been sorely tested in this thread and I've come off as quite harsh more than once, but no. Someone who believes accommodation is unnecessary - or, more commonly, believes that sufficient accomodation has already been made and further accommodation would needlessly erode the spirit of the game for margnial-at-best benefit - is not intrinsically insensitive or unsympathetic. Such individuals do have a tendency to dig in their heels and make themselves quite difficult to sympathize with in turn, as ever it has thus been when conservative-minded folk push back against efforts to change, alter, or dispense with Tradition. This can lead to severe friction and frustration, and often has the unfortunate effect of lessening sensivitity and empathy on both sides. I know I am done with explaining to people how certain stereotypical traditions of D&D closely map to modern-day exclusionism and why that's harmful, just as I imagine they're equally done with trying to explain why pretend monsters in their make-believe game of imaginary elves and fictitious flying lizards should not have any bearing on what happens outside Game Night.
It's an issue of fundamental difference in premises; Side A's logic and arguments make perfect sense if you believe Premise Set 1, but Side B looks at Premise Set 1 and wonders what, exactly, Side A has been smoking. They're either baffled by Premise Set 1 or vehemently disagree with it, and in many cases are outright hostile to Premise Set 1. When two sides of an argument cannot agree on even the most basic premises of that argument, the argument is doomed to failure and becomes a drain on the mental and emotional resources of everyone involved...but we're all so invested in our positions that we can't help but have that argument anyways.
3.) This is a pretty fantastic place to speak on something I've been meaning to find a way to talk about on these forums forever. There's a lot of folks slinging terms like "woke", "leftthink", and similarly perjorative terms around, with the clear and obvious insinuation that they do not believe those they sling the terms at have any merit. In short, crude summation: they do not believe in people's feelings or the idea that one can offer offense unintentionally and without rancor. "You'll ******* know when I offend you" is a common rejoinder elsewhere on the Internet, as is "offense is never given, it's taken". This shows a deep lack of understanding of what "woke" actually means and the methodology behind consideration.
My answer, and my proposal for any table - and indeed, anyone who has to navigate people's emotions in real life - is to understand that it is impossible to avoid giving offense. You just can't do it. You WILL step on someone else's feelings and cause pain at times, it's as unavoidable as accidentally running into other people in a crowded market. When it happens? You're not a bad person. You did nothing evil. Rather than getting defensive and try to persist, all you do is acknowledge that you touched on a sore spot you didn't know was there, back up, and promise to do better in the future. The person who got stepped on should, in turn, acknowledge that it was an innocent mistake with no malice behind it, accept the apology graciously, and move on. Someone who gets hissy and spitty and snarls at folks on a first offense is being a jerk, just the same way that somebody who deliberately keeps stomping on sore spots they bloody well know are there is being a jerk. Nevertheless. Learning how to properly handle accidental offense and how to respect boundaries and others' personal experiences is a critical life skill in the modern era that will also greatly ease your time playing at the table.
4.) I don't really know as there's any dangers beyond what we're already seeing, re:tribalism and Us vs. Them-ing. If the playerbase continues to split, there's not much Wizards can really do - the more drastic people get in their differences the harder it becomes to thread the needle, and the company is NOT very responsive. They can only move so quickly, and that speed is so much slower than the customer base they're trying to keep up with. If they stray too far one way, then there's the obvious danger of 4e-ing themselves again and having an edition fail. That's the big one, really - if they go too far one way or the other, they can fall off the line entirely and disillusion the entire fanbase.
That's a drastic result though, and I'm not sure I can really overstate how much of a game-changer modern streaming shows are. Critical Role is the big one, but there are hundreds of others, and they're such an enormous multiplier on the game's reach that Wizards has been struggling to keep up. The main route to Getting Into D&D(C) has always been "somebody at the table invites you to watch, you get interested, and you end up playing." Well, now people can invite millions of other people to the table to watch, all at once, and it's giving the hobby reach like it's never had before. That's going to come with shifts in the aggregate Will Of The Playerbase; you don't get to explode the way 5e has without changes along the way. The dangers of not picking a side could be leaving millions of potential customers frozen out of your product. I don't think that's at all likely - but a fifty year old property that has historically been highly resistant to change doesn't really get to suddenly attract an enormous new audience of primarily younger, modern fans with modern sensibilities in the space of maybe half a decade and still strenuously resist any and all efforts to modernize. there are certainly dangers in Too Far, Too Fast...but there's also dangers in Not Far Enough.
Anyways. Thank you for the interesting hypothetical, and hopefully your words end up seen by more than just the small handful of diehards clinging to this thread.
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This thread has veered wildly off topic and into a lot of subjects and discussions that violate site rules. As such, it will be locked.
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