Back compatibility to 5e. As for lore "deletions," the philosophy behind what's going on re canon or what you call lore, other party's conspiracy theories and valuations aside, is laid out here. The fidelity you seek to see maintained, from a business and game practice standpoint is regarded as a "barrier to entry" sort of like your professed forecasted irritation at potential players not know lore like you do. The design studio's perspective of what they want and seeing the playerbase wanted is almost literally the opposite valence.
Anyone can curate their game any way they want, but lore is proving to be less a fundamental than what the design studio is putting out as fundamentals, so the game goes forward without a consistent canon lore.
The linked article is quite interesting, actually. It backs up quite further than I'd figured Wizards was going to on matters of canon and echoes the sentiment myself and others have expressed before - "if it isn't in a 5e book, it isn't canon."
I think it even goes further in that "Not even the lore you're reading in a 5e book is necessarily canon". For those who play in the Sword Coast centered Forgotten Realms, maybe Tyranny of Dragons happened (as a weird echo of the Dragonlance saga) maybe it didn't. Maybe Storm King's Thunder had some reaction in part to the giants involvement or lack of involvement in Tyranny or dragons, or maybe STK and/or Tyranny of Dragons didn't happen. Maybe the Fall of Elturel was a big deal as Descent into Avernus was a big part of your game, including prologues dealing with the sanctimonious hypocrisy of its theocracy of Elturgard ... or maybe Elturel never fell and the Companion was actually a good gift from Torm or whoever.
I've run Descent into Avernus before, but in my game now I'm using Bernie the Barber and Arkhan's camp in ways very different than the way they were presented in the module. As far as my present game goes, DitA never happened but anyone familiar with the module knows where I'm getting those two figures from (and had DitA never been written, I doubt I would have had the idea for characters like them). Folks may recognize them in a "I see what you're doing there" but I'd be very perplexed if anyone thought I was using them wrong. And that's the extent of lore functional utility in the game as played. Sure it's fun to look into lore, I do deep dives all the time, but lore shouldn't dictate, just inspire.
I’m not trying to single you out, but your terminology is something I can use to start saying the point I’m trying to make.
I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and yes this is relevant. For ten whole years I’ve been fighting a glitch in my brain that caused me to suffer, my family to suffer because of me, and nearly caused things I don’t want to contemplate. I don’t feel like I’m overly exaggerating when I call this disease an evil.
My experience is not unique and definitely not the worst example of people suffering from, as you say, “soulless, mindless, will-less” evils. Diseases, mental illnesses, natural disasters, take your pick. You yourself my have experienced any of these, and if so I apologize if I have presumed you haven’t in this writing.
The idea of the impersonal evil force, often embodied as monstrous beings (which I’ll concede that D&D orc, kobolds, and such have always been too humanlike to really count for) as always represented in my mind these things. So I hope you understand that my fantasies of fighting these forces and monsters are every bit as important to me as yours about standing up against the humans who also mess the world up.
I’m not trying to single you out, but your terminology is something I can use to start saying the point I’m trying to make.
I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and yes this is relevant. For ten whole years I’ve been fighting a glitch in my brain that caused me to suffer, my family to suffer because of me, and nearly caused things I don’t want to contemplate. I don’t feel like I’m overly exaggerating when I call this disease an evil.
My experience is not unique and definitely not the worst example of people suffering from, as you say, “soulless, mindless, will-less” evils. Diseases, mental illnesses, natural disasters, take your pick. You yourself my have experienced any of these, and if so I apologize if I have presumed you haven’t in this writing.
The idea of the impersonal evil force, often embodied as monstrous beings (which I’ll concede that D&D orc, kobolds, and such have always been too humanlike to really count for) as always represented in my mind these things. So I hope you understand that my fantasies of fighting these forces and monsters are every bit as important to me as yours about standing up against the humans who also mess the world up.
You already stated that this doesn't apply to Orcs, Kobolds, and the like. Which specific player races does this apply to? If none of them, then I would have to say that it is hardly relative to the discussion. The errata didn't make Beholders, Fire Giants or Devils any less evil for example, it just affects player races. You still have a whole Monsters Manual (plus many many more monsters) that are the embodiment of evil to fight without any issues of morality to get in the way.
You already stated that this doesn't apply to Orcs, Kobolds, and the like. Which specific player races does this apply to? If none of them, then I would have to say that it is hardly relative to the discussion. The errata didn't make Beholders, Fire Giants or Devils any less evil for example, it just affects player races. You still have a whole Monsters Manual (plus many many more) monsters that are the embodiment of evil to fight without any issues of morality to get in the way.
This isn't necessarily so. The reason many of us are all riled up is because they specifically did say changes being made included mindflayers and beholders as an example. Similarly, you are even stating formerly monster races as player races in your question. What makes an Orc or Kobold any more 'human' than a fire giant? Fire Giants have a culture and society too and an INT score of 6 or above; i.e. they are sapient/sentient 'free willed' entities; perhaps even more so than orcs in certain iterations of the lore. Why does an Orc desrve to be considered a player race now rather than a monster race moreso than a Fire-Giant? Is it just because of mechanical issues associated with their size? - cause size notwithstanding, Giants have already been culturally disney-fied over the last few decades too; and presumably alignment affiliations are being removed from them too along with most other ones.
I think gnolls were mentioned as one that they're not doing it to; and that makes even less sense. Even in the core setting lore, gnolls weren't made by their god and therefore presumably have even more free will than orcs do - and there are half-gnolls too.
You already stated that this doesn't apply to Orcs, Kobolds, and the like. Which specific player races does this apply to? If none of them, then I would have to say that it is hardly relative to the discussion. The errata didn't make Beholders, Fire Giants or Devils any less evil for example, it just affects player races. You still have a whole Monsters Manual (plus many many more) monsters that are the embodiment of evil to fight without any issues of morality to get in the way.
This isn't necessarily so. The reason many of us are all riled up is because they specifically did say changes being made included mindflayers and beholders as an example. Similarly, you are even stating formerly monster races as player races in your question. What makes an Orc or Kobold any more 'human' than a fire giant? Fire Giants have a culture and society too and an INT score of 6 or above; i.e. they are sapient/sentient 'free willed' entities; perhaps even more so than orcs in certain iterations of the lore. Why does an Orc desrve to be considered a player race now rather than a monster race moreso than a Fire-Giant? Is it just because of mechanical issues associated with their size? - cause size notwithstanding, Giants have already been culturally disney-fied over the last few decades too; and presumably alignment affiliations are being removed from them too along with most other ones.
I think gnolls were mentioned as one that they're not doing it to; and that makes even less sense. Even in the core setting lore, gnolls weren't made by their god and therefore presumably have even more free will than orcs do - and there are half-gnolls too.
Did you read the post that I quoted? THEY said that Orcs and Kobolds are too human to count. Also, WotC says that Orcs are a player race and Fire Giants aren't.
Secondly, the Errata does not change the alignment of Mind Flayers or Beholders or any other monster it only removed redundant information and descriptions of specific acts of violence. Have you read the errata?
Edit: Orcs as a playable race isn't even new to D&D and as been a thing since at least 2nd edition..
You already stated that this doesn't apply to Orcs, Kobolds, and the like. Which specific player races does this apply to? If none of them, then I would have to say that it is hardly relative to the discussion. The errata didn't make Beholders, Fire Giants or Devils any less evil for example, it just affects player races. You still have a whole Monsters Manual (plus many many more) monsters that are the embodiment of evil to fight without any issues of morality to get in the way.
This isn't necessarily so. The reason many of us are all riled up is because they specifically did say changes being made included mindflayers and beholders as an example.
No it didn't. Sure, it made some small changes to the text, but it was mostly to get rid of redundant material, not to make Mind Flayers and Beholders good guys now.
And if they are . . . so what? Large Luigi from Spelljammer is a Beholder Barkeep, and he's been a part of the game for about 30 years. There have been good Mind Flayers for decades, too. They're not the majority, and their existence is still morally questionable, but they've existed, and I haven't seen anyone yelling/whining about those NPCs when they came out.
Similarly, you are even stating formerly monster races as player races in your question. What makes an Orc or Kobold any more 'human' than a fire giant? Fire Giants have a culture and society too and an INT score of 6 or above; i.e. they are sapient/sentient 'free willed' entities; perhaps even more so than orcs in certain iterations of the lore. Why does an Orc desrve to be considered a player race now rather than a monster race moreso than a Fire-Giant? Is it just because of mechanical issues associated with their size? - cause size notwithstanding, Giants have already been culturally disney-fied over the last few decades too; and presumably alignment affiliations are being removed from them too along with most other ones.
I think gnolls were mentioned as one that they're not doing it to; and that makes even less sense. Even in the core setting lore, gnolls weren't made by their god and therefore presumably have even more free will than orcs do - and there are half-gnolls too.
Your logical fallacy is "whataboutism", and it isn't even an accurate one.
So, by all means, the next Monster Manual should absolutely treat Giants, Orcs, Kobolds, and the lot as "people", if they are people. If they aren't people (beasts, oozes, most undead, most constructs, most aberrations, etc), don't treat them like they are.
(As a side note, I absolutely hate this edition's treatment of Gnolls. Gnolls have traditionally been playable in many D&D settings, but for some reason D&D 5e decided to roll back the clock and make them Demons in All But Name. If they're demons, just call them demons. If they aren't, let them be playable! Goddammit Wizards!)
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I think gnolls were mentioned as one that they're not doing it to; and that makes even less sense. Even in the core setting lore, gnolls weren't made by their god and therefore presumably have even more free will than orcs do - and there are half-gnolls too.
"Demonic Origin.The origin of the gnolls traces back to a time when the demon lord Yeenoghu found his way to the Material Plane and ran amok. Packs of ordinary hyenas followed in his wake, scavenging the demon lord’s kills. Those hyenas were transformed into the first gnolls, parading after Yeenoghu until he was banished back to the Abyss. The gnolls then scattered across the face of the world, a dire reminder of demonic power." - Quoted from the Monsters Manual
We recently released a set of errata documents cataloging the corrections and changes we’ve made in recent reprints of various titles. I thought I’d provide some additional context on some of these changes and why we made them.
First, I urge all of you to read the errata documents for yourselves. A lot of assertions about the errata we’ve noticed in various online discussions aren’t accurate. (For example, we haven’t decided that beholders and mind flayers are no longer evil.)
We make text corrections for many reasons, but there are a few themes running through this latest batch of corrections worth highlighting.
1) The Multiverse: I’ve previously noted that new setting products are a major area of focus for the Studio going forward. As part of that effort, our reminders that D&D supports not just The Forgotten Realms but a multitude of worlds are getting more explicit. Since the nature of creatures and cultures vary from world to world, we’re being extra careful about making authoritative statements about such things without providing appropriate context. If we’re discussing orcs, for instance, it’s important to note which orcs we’re talking about. The orcs of Greyhawk are quite different from the orcs you’ll find in Eberron, for instance, just as an orc settlement on the Sword Coast may exhibit a very different culture than another orc settlement located on the other side of Faerûn. This addresses corrections like the blanket disclaimer added to p.5 of VOLO’S GUIDE.
2) Alignment: The only real changes related to alignment were removing the suggested alignments previously assigned to playable races in the PHB and elsewhere (“most dwarves are lawful;” “most halflings are lawful good”). We stopped providing such suggestions for new playable races some time ago. Since every player character is a unique individual, we no longer feel that such guidance is useful or appropriate. Whether or not most halflings are lawful good has no bearing on your halfling and who you want to be. After all, the most memorable and interesting characters often explicitly subvert expectations and stereotypes. And again, it’s impossible to say something like “most halflings are lawful good” without clarifying which halflings we’re talking about. (It’s probably not true that most Athasian halflings are lawful good.) These changes were foreshadowed in an earlier blog post and impact only the guidance provided during character creation; they are not reflective of any changes to our settings or the associated lore.
3) Creature Personalities: We also removed a couple paragraphs suggesting that all mind flayers or all beholders (for instance) share a single, stock personality. We’ve long advised DMs that one way to make adventures and campaigns more memorable is to populate them with unique and interesting characters. These paragraphs stood in conflict with that advice. We didn’t alter the essential natures of these creatures or how they fit into our settings at all. (Mind flayers still devour the brains of humanoids, and yes, that means they tend to be evil.)
The through-line that connects these three themes is our renewed commitment to encouraging DMs and players to create whatever worlds and characters they can imagine.
Happy holidays and happy gaming.
Because apparently this needs to be posted for everyone to read again.
I’m not trying to single you out, but your terminology is something I can use to start saying the point I’m trying to make.
I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and yes this is relevant. For ten whole years I’ve been fighting a glitch in my brain that caused me to suffer, my family to suffer because of me, and nearly caused things I don’t want to contemplate. I don’t feel like I’m overly exaggerating when I call this disease an evil.
My experience is not unique and definitely not the worst example of people suffering from, as you say, “soulless, mindless, will-less” evils. Diseases, mental illnesses, natural disasters, take your pick. You yourself my have experienced any of these, and if so I apologize if I have presumed you haven’t in this writing.
The idea of the impersonal evil force, often embodied as monstrous beings (which I’ll concede that D&D orc, kobolds, and such have always been too humanlike to really count for) as always represented in my mind these things. So I hope you understand that my fantasies of fighting these forces and monsters are every bit as important to me as yours about standing up against the humans who also mess the world up.
Nor am I denigrating that fantasy. D&D, at its core, is a Hero Fantasy game. The players are Heroes (or bloody well should be, anyways), and that means there are Evils for the Heroes to combat. Sometimes those Evils are going to be orcish raiders, kobold dragon cultists, or goblin thieves and throat-cutters, just as much as those Evils are sometimes human versions of those same things. Sometimes those Evils are going to be aberrations, monstrosities from beyond the stars that have no place in a healthy land and sicken the world with their very presence. Their very classification - aberration - marks them as Other, as something that doesn't belong here. While a rare few of them - or even entire civilizations of them - might buck the trend and become mild new neighbors, many of them are so alien that even though they have the capacity to communicate with us, they rarely have reason to.
No one is arguing that Evil doesn't exist. The arguments are against needlessly applying a broad-strokes 'Evil' brush to things that do not merit it and limiting new play groups in what they can do. Were I DMing for your table by random cosmic happenstance, I would likely lean into aberrations as a villainous force for the campaign, commensurate with their status as a sickness in reality itself. Star Spawn are especially good for that sort of storyline, one could make entire campaigns around seeking to purge and finally cure an incursion of Star Spawn withering away at the world around it. Star Spawn doesn't consider itself evil, of course - but what does it care about the concerns of the fragile, temporary little meat-things thronging the land? They don't register on its radar save as a means of spreading its influence once properly modified; it's on the Heroes of the game to stop these things from enacting their will on the world.
The only real change any of this errata of late makes - and this specific errata doesn't even really do this save for drow PCs - is a shift in emphasis. The onus is on the DM to figure out why their Villain is Villainous. Orcs can still be villains. So can goblins, kobolds, bugbears, any of the historically 'Bad Guy' species. These days, they need a reason to be villainous. Just like any other species. That reason doesn't necessarily have to be complex, and some tables will happily accept "because they're orcs, duh?" as the reason for Villainous orcs. But the onus is still there, on the DM, rather than being hard-baked into the lore and thus something other tables and other DMs have to work much harder to scrape out of the game if they don't want it.
The tables for which "...they're orcs, that's why they're evil" is sufficient don't really need to do any work, no matter what the books say. Those tables will never have an issue murdering orcs in batch lots, and if that's the game they love to play then I wish success and much orc death upon their game night. It's just easier for everybody else if the books are neutral and provide us the option, rather than attempting to categorically sell things as Always Chaotic Evil Forever that, realistically, have not been so for many years. Drow are an excellent example - there's been so many drow PCs, so many stories of renegade drow fighting to stick it to Lolth, and so many subversions of the 'Drow are EVIL!' thing that frankly the species' reputation as hilariously over-evil forever-villains is kinda beyond salvation anyways. In real terms, drow have just been an exotic PC option for years now, with some tables clinging to past editions' lore and breaking the dice hands of any player who suggests playing one while other tables have never bothered restricting them and just figured ordinary, not-evil Heroic drow came from somewhere. The errata is not "changing" anything, it's simply aligning the books with how a very significant chunk of the playerbase already plays, and what Wizards knows the trend for this species is.
If fighting impersonal, undisguised evil is important to your games? Then do it, and take joy in it. Some of us simply have different aspirations, and we'd like the books to work for us as much as they work for you rather than having to fight them at every third word.
You already stated that this doesn't apply to Orcs, Kobolds, and the like. Which specific player races does this apply to? If none of them, then I would have to say that it is hardly relative to the discussion. The errata didn't make Beholders, Fire Giants or Devils any less evil for example, it just affects player races. You still have a whole Monsters Manual (plus many many more) monsters that are the embodiment of evil to fight without any issues of morality to get in the way.
This isn't necessarily so. The reason many of us are all riled up is because they specifically did say changes being made included mindflayers and beholders as an example.
If you actually read the errata, and other documentation that has been provided you many times and see that the modifications to player races and modifications to monsters are different things for different reasons, the former to remove any explicit essentializing of evil, the latter to encourage DMs to consider the broader lore of the monster besides the scant paragraph saying "play it like this." Again, if you actually read the substance of the changed texts and not some internet pot stirring. The fact that your using mindflayers and beholders as an example shows you haven't done the reading this thread is discussing.
Similarly, you are even stating formerly monster races as player races in your question. What makes an Orc or Kobold any more 'human' than a fire giant? Fire Giants have a culture and society too and an INT score of 6 or above; i.e. they are sapient/sentient 'free willed' entities; perhaps even more so than orcs in certain iterations of the lore. Why does an Orc desrve to be considered a player race now rather than a monster race moreso than a Fire-Giant? Is it just because of mechanical issues associated with their size? - cause size notwithstanding, Giants have already been culturally disney-fied over the last few decades too; and presumably alignment affiliations are being removed from them too along with most other ones.
This argument I'm sorry is unhinged flailing of as Third pointed out, Whataboutism. If you can't get your head around why a Fire Giant makes for a mechanically problematic player race than say Orcs, it's sorta a "Bro, do you even D&D bro?" moment. I don't see a lot of what anyone would call "Disney-fying" of Fire Giants. You know this is a discussion primarily about Volo's right? You know there's a pretty substantial chapter on Giants, including Fire Giants in Volo's including a pretty explicit section on their use of slaves ... with a short blurb that comes down to a "back breaking labor" grimdark joke being the only that that got excised. You are arguing against a fiction of "what's being done to D&D" that largely exists in your own head and nowhere else. Folks have tried to help you get a clearer understanding of the place of lore as well as inclusive and broader game play considerations. If you want to continue to use this thread as your vanity grievance space, flailing at some invisible mover of your cheese, try to at least talk about things that have actually happened in texts, don't argue from a position of half to quarter understanding.
I think gnolls were mentioned as one that they're not doing it to; and that makes even less sense. Even in the core setting lore, gnolls weren't made by their god and therefore presumably have even more free will than orcs do - and there are half-gnolls too.
"core setting lore" isn't a thing, since the game is largely setting agnostic. If you read the write up in the MM, which are part of the core rules to the game, you'd see how Gnolls function in this edition regardless of what you think you know of gnolls and "half gnolls." If you want to go deeper into the depcition of gnolls, you could read Volo's.
At the end of the day the pages you've provided in this thread comes down to "There's a book I'm evidently unfamiliar with. Changes were made to it. I'm upset about this." And you call that a position? You seem to have a game you're happy with, so I just don't see what the grousing is about.
One day forced inclusion will be seen for the barbarism it is.
There's a stance I hold, when I talk about these things to people who are more tolerant, understanding, and introspective than others about the matter. That stance is that the only thing worse than equal opportunity laws, diversity laws, and other legal measures meant to punish exclusionism is what happens when you don't have them.
Yes, forced inclusion is bad. Exclusionism - that is, racism, sexism, creedism, and all the other "isms" people get up to these days - is worse. It's never good to coerce someone into a certain pattern of behavior or thought; if the behavior or pattern of thought is desirable the proper way is to educate someone and allow them to come around to the idea on their own time and of their own volition. I try and do that whenever I can, discuss and explain to folks why some of the ideas they're initially hostile to aren't so bad as all that and might even benefit them, which is why I'm responding to this wildly off-topic post in the first place.
That said...we also can't let people keep getting away with exclusionism. We can't. Part of defeating it is constant vigilance against it, constantly remaining aware of it and knowing when it's poking its nasty face into society...such as when a game has situations in it that very closely mirror real-world exclusionism such as "all the nasty underground darkies are always evil forever and we should all trot down there and let the gods sort 'em out." People cannot be allowed to keep making decisions based on exclusionism, and to do things that support exclusionism, freely if we ever want exclusionism to go away. It's uncomfortable. People hate it. Trust me, the people 'benefitting' from affirmative action, diversity, equal opportunity, and the like hate those laws just as much as everybody else does. We all wish they could just go away, but if "forced inclusion" was abolished now exclusionism of various sorts would run bloody rampant.
We are slowly, painfully, and with a whole lot of kicking and screaming along the way, trying to beat the tribalism out of ourselves as a species and learn how to view one another with compassion and respect rather than with suspicion and hostility. That's going to continue to take many growing pains, and it's going to continue to require measures nobody wishes we had to resort to.
Barbarism? Perhaps. But necessary barbarism in many places and many times. So please, let's avoid further insinuations of hostility if we can?
This argument I'm sorry is unhinged flailing of as Third pointed out, Whataboutism.
If you can't get your head around why a Fire Giant makes for a mechanically problematic player race than say Orcs, it's sorta a "Bro, do you even D&D bro?" moment.
I don't see a lot of what anyone would call "Disney-fying" of Fire Giants.
You know this is a discussion primarily about Volo's right?
You know there's a pretty substantial chapter on Giants, including Fire Giants in Volo's including a pretty explicit section on their use of slaves ... with a short blurb that comes down to a "back breaking labor" grimdark joke being the only that that got excised.
You are arguing against a fiction of "what's being done to D&D" that largely exists in your own head and nowhere else. Folks have tried to help you get a clearer understanding of the place of lore as well as inclusive and broader game play considerations. If you want to continue to use this thread as your vanity grievance space, flailing at some invisible mover of your cheese, try to at least talk about things that have actually happened in texts, don't argue from a position of half to quarter understanding.
"core setting lore" isn't a thing, since the game is largely setting agnostic. If you read the write up in the MM, which are part of the core rules to the game, you'd see how Gnolls function in this edition regardless of what you think you know of gnolls and "half gnolls." If you want to go deeper into the depcition of gnolls, you could read Volo's.
At the end of the day the pages you've provided in this thread comes down to "There's a book I'm evidently unfamiliar with. Changes were made to it. I'm upset about this." And you call that a position?
You seem to have a game you're happy with, so I just don't see what the grousing is about.
What about whataboutism? If something is true, it's true for everyone. If someone points out that you are apllying an apparent truth to one type of "person" and not another, it doesn't matter what you label it, it's still a valid point.
Dude, I don't care about what makes a certain creature mechanically feasable as a player class. Whatever features don't, I can work around if I had a player who really wanted to play one - whether by using a half-human template (i.e Hagrid) or a cursed ring of reduce creature, or some other excuse to adapt the mechanics to suit the plot.
No, I mean the cultural perception of giants IRL. They are now B.F.G. and the Ghost of Chrisman Present, and Tiny and his family from Once Upon a Time, etc. They aren't the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk anymore. Rather the perception of Jack and the beanstalk has changed such that Jack isn't really the hero of the piece but rather he is someone who has basically robbed and murdered someone else. This is uncomfortable as when you apply simialr logic to most of the mosters; the party are basically robbing and murdering them too.
No? I thought this discussion is also/primarily about the proposed upcoming errata for reprints of the MM etc. re the 50th anniversary edition. What's the matter with Volo's?
Yeah, I've got no problem with a joke about backbreaking labor being revised out. My issue is with citing Fire giants as an exception to the jist of the statement "It's racist to presume a type of sapient beings: specifically stated as 'people' re a monster type; have an evil nature - and you're referencing fire giant slavery to me as an example of their evilness; obviously my response will be to remind you that Drow and Orcs have slaves too whom they also overwork and treat harshly; and worse - before Half-Orcs were a product of marriage alliances between hill tibes of Orcs and Men against a common foe it was pretty explicitly implied that they were a product Orc raiders ****** their victims and either leaving them in the pillaged village or taking them away as slaves. They removed this monstrousness from Orcs. If they wanted to, they could remove monstrousness from Giants too. There is no reason from the ethical standpoint your side likes to argue, that Giants should be an exception to being humanized/antropomorphised.
The point of 'fussing' isn't really about what's already hppened, it's about things that haven't happened yet having the possibility of being reconsidered if seems the proposal is being met with more disaproval than approval. My side has a bad habit of keeping silent before things happen and then being angy after the fact. It's better if we clarify our positions before people who are change of production lines make all of their final decisions.
dude, this: Gnolls are feral, hyena-headed humanoids that attack without warning, slaughtering their victims and devouring their flesh. doesn't help me, and could just as easly be an entry which reads Orcs are feral, tusk-mouthed humanoids that attack without warning, slaughtering their victims and devouring their flesh. Their demonic origins entry doesn't contradict my staement about not having been created; or if you like, I'll clarify as 'directly' created by their god. I'm afraid it's going to take me a little while to read Volo's. I've not unlocked it yet, and I need to finish unlocking Tasha's and the other book of everything one first. Anyway, MM doesn't change the point that gnolls have sapience/sentience and therefore presumably free will - if you are in the camp that says alignment is a product of choice; rather than something tangible that is a product of either mystical or biological influences; and this contradicts their thirst for blood entry which states their hearts are devoid of goodness or compassion and lacks a consciense as would a demon. Again, I see no reason why this sort of generalization should be acceptable to apply to gnolls but not to Orcs/Goblins/Kobolds/etc. Either everyone with a 6 or more in INT should be considered as having 'personhood' at least to some degree; and if not, there is no reason to specifically single out some monsters over others to deserve the privilige.
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.
Ah, don't mind me. I'm an old enough man that grousing is just a hobbey of mine. Particularly in this day and age (pandemic season) I don't have many avenues for self-expression besides internet forums. It feels good to get things off my chest sometimes. I happen to be on DDB a lot atm working on my campaign, so when I need a break and notice a red circle on my bell icon, I click it and respond to the last reply then scroll down to see what I missed.
This argument I'm sorry is unhinged flailing of as Third pointed out, Whataboutism.
If you can't get your head around why a Fire Giant makes for a mechanically problematic player race than say Orcs, it's sorta a "Bro, do you even D&D bro?" moment.
I don't see a lot of what anyone would call "Disney-fying" of Fire Giants.
You know this is a discussion primarily about Volo's right?
You know there's a pretty substantial chapter on Giants, including Fire Giants in Volo's including a pretty explicit section on their use of slaves ... with a short blurb that comes down to a "back breaking labor" grimdark joke being the only that that got excised.
You are arguing against a fiction of "what's being done to D&D" that largely exists in your own head and nowhere else. Folks have tried to help you get a clearer understanding of the place of lore as well as inclusive and broader game play considerations. If you want to continue to use this thread as your vanity grievance space, flailing at some invisible mover of your cheese, try to at least talk about things that have actually happened in texts, don't argue from a position of half to quarter understanding.
"core setting lore" isn't a thing, since the game is largely setting agnostic. If you read the write up in the MM, which are part of the core rules to the game, you'd see how Gnolls function in this edition regardless of what you think you know of gnolls and "half gnolls." If you want to go deeper into the depcition of gnolls, you could read Volo's.
At the end of the day the pages you've provided in this thread comes down to "There's a book I'm evidently unfamiliar with. Changes were made to it. I'm upset about this." And you call that a position?
You seem to have a game you're happy with, so I just don't see what the grousing is about.
What about whataboutism? If something is true, it's true for everyone. If someone points out that you are apllying an apparent truth to one type of "person" and not another, it doesn't matter what you label it, it's still a valid point.
Dude, I don't care about what makes a certain creature mechanically feasable as a player class. Whatever features don't, I can work around if I had a player who really wanted to play one - whether by using a half-human template (i.e Hagrid) or a cursed ring of reduce creature, or some other excuse to adapt the mechanics to suit the plot.
No, I mean the cultural perception of giants IRL. They are now B.F.G. and the Ghost of Chrisman Present, and Tiny and his family from Once Upon a Time, etc. They aren't the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk anymore. Rather the perception of Jack and the beanstalk has changed such that Jack isn't really the hero of the piece but rather he is someone who has basically robbed and murdered someone else. This is uncomfortable as when you apply simialr logic to most of the mosters; the party are basically robbing and murdering them too.
No? I thought this discussion is also/primarily about the proposed upcoming errata for reprints of the MM etc. re the 50th anniversary edition. What's the matter with Volo's?
Yeah, I've got no problem with a joke about backbreaking labor being revised out. My issues is if you are citing Fire giants as an exception to the jist of the statement "It's racist to presume a type of sapient beings: specifically stated as 'people' re a monster type; have an evil nature - and you're referencing fire giant slavery at me as an example of their evilness; obviously my response will be to remind you that Drow and Orcs have slaves too whom they also overwork and treat harshly; and worse - before Half-Orcs were a product of marriage alliances between hill tibes of Orcs and Men against a common foe it was pretty explicitly implied that they were a product Orc raiders ****** their victims and either leaving them in the pillaged village or taking them away as slaves. They removed this monstrousness from Orcs. If they wanted to, they could remove monstrousness from Giants too. There is no reason from ethical standpoint your side likes to argue that Giants should be an exception to being humanized/antropomorphised.
The point of 'fussing' isn't really about what's already hppened, it's about things that haven't happened yet having the possibility of being reconsidered if seems the proposal is being met with more disaproval than approval. My side has a bad habit of keeping silent before things happen and then being angy after the fact. It's better if we clarify our positions before people who are change of production lines make all of their final decisions.
dude, this: Gnolls are feral, hyena-headed humanoids that attack without warning, slaughtering their victims and devouring their flesh. doesn't help me, and could just as easly be an entry which reads Orcs are feral, tusk-mouthed humanoids that attack without warning, slaughtering their victims and devouring their flesh. Their demonic origins entry doesn't contradict my staement about not having been created; or if you like, I'll clarify as 'directly' created by their god. I'm afraid it's going to take me a little while to read Volo's. I've not unlocked it yet, and I need to finish unlocking Tasha's and the other book of everything one first. Anyway, MM doesn't change the point that gnolls have sapience/sentience and therefore presumably free will - if you are in the camp that says alignment is a product of choice; rather than something tangible that is a product of either mystical or biological influences; and this contradicts their thirst for blood entry which states their hearts are devoid of goodness or compassion and lacks a consciense as would a demon. Again, I see no reason why this sort of generalization should be acceptable to apply to gnolls but not to Orcs/Goblins/Kobolds/etc. Either everyone with a 6 or more in INT should be considered as having 'personhood' at least to some degree; and if not, there is no reason to specifically single out some monsters over others to deserve the privilige.
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.
Ah, don't mind me. I'm an old enough man that grousing is just a hobbey of mine. Particularly in this day and age (pandemic season) I don't have many avenues for self-expression besides internet forums. It feels good to get things off my chest sometimes. I happen to be on DDB a lot atm working on my campaign, so when I need a break and notice a red circle on my bell icon, I click it and respond to the last reply then scroll down to see what I missed.
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.
I'm wondering why it cannot be the other way around?
People were always allowed to play their way without regard to what the sources stated. Inclusivity was always up to the table no matter what was printed. I saw streams doing things already contrary to pre-errata settings before the errata and TCoE.
I suppose it can be like changing things to how some people already played (which is why the changes don't bother me none), but what about those who played closer to the unmitigated harsh-reality lore before the changes—the grit and grime of the setting that drew in a lot of players versus the social utopias?
I can see how some people are feeling pressured by the official changes to use the social utopia settings lest they be called exclusive whereas players like us who chose to ignore stigmas didn't need any official source saying it was okay.
While I like to get away from reality, I also prefer some connection with the way things were to get away from modern reality where what I am matters far less now than it did in history. I can appreciate how far we've come in both the comparison with history (even though we still have some more to do today) and as well as the modern self-reliance to change the setting as we choose without needing permission to do so. I liked being the exception and finding the exception in the past rather than painting pretty colors over everything for me comfort. I feel like someone is pandering to me—something that does not bring me any pride to what I am.
We all can easily type that other people are allowed to not change and to play the "old style" of lore, but the reality is that a negative stigma has been placed on those who do just that and don't change—a stigma that had no equivalent for those of us who played differently than the official lore back then.
It just feels unnecessary and a bit like mere marketing and posturing rather than sincerity.
I didn't need WotC's permission then. They granted it to me anyway at the cost of shaming those who prefer to conquer certain issues found commonly is such old civilizations.
I dunno. It's all become muddied in my head, and I feel like it wasn't prior.
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I'm wondering why it cannot be the other way around?
People were always allowed to play their way without regard to what the sources stated. Inclusivity was always up to the table no matter what was printed. I saw streams doing things already contrary to pre-errata settings before the errata and TCoE.
I suppose it can be like changing things to how some people already played (which is why the changes don't bother me none), but what about those who played closer to the unmitigated harsh-reality lore before the changes—the grit and grime of the setting that drew in a lot of players versus the social utopias?
I can see how some people are feeling pressured by the official changes to use the social utopia settings lest they be called exclusive whereas players like us who chose to ignore stigmas didn't need any official source saying it was okay.
While I like to get away from reality, I also prefer some connection with the way things were to get away from modern reality where what I am matters far less now than it did in history. I can appreciate how far we've come in both the comparison with history (even though we still have some more to do today) and as well as the modern self-reliance to change the setting as we choose without needing permission to do so. I liked being the exception and finding the exception in the past rather than painting pretty colors over everything for me comfort. I feel like someone is pandering to me—something that does not bring me any pride to what I am.
We all can easily type that other people are allowed to not change and to play the "old style" of lore, but the reality is that a negative stigma has been placed on those who do just that and don't change—a stigma that had no equivalent for those of us who played differently than the official lore back then.
It just feels unnecessary and a bit like mere marketing and posturing rather than sincerity.
I didn't need WotC's permission then. They granted it to me anyway at the cost of shaming those who prefer to conquer certain issues found commonly is such old civilizations.
I dunno. It's all become muddied in my head, and I feel like it wasn't prior.
WotC needed to do it because they want to make money. Society is changing, they either need to change with it or they would be left with nothing but a dwindling group of aging players and would soon be out of business. It isn't all that hard to figure out. They aren't trend setting here, they are just following the money.
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.
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Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
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.
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.
There is no thread about upcoming errata because there is no "upcoming" errata. They don't announce it, they just release it. If you're looking for a place to vent about how people are Ruining D&D Forever(C) by demanding that old DMs stop breaking their fingers whenever they try and play something other than a human (because despite what EricHVela says, there is absolutely a stigma, and often a very strong one, against 'breaking the mold' and playing something different from the established traditions of the game in Old Gamer circles), then you can try and start one, or you can continue to vent in here. Either way, people will push back against it because we like our fingers unbroken whenever at all possible.
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Hey, there's been more than one good decision!
Like.....um.....that one time....where they changed the thing.....
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
I think it even goes further in that "Not even the lore you're reading in a 5e book is necessarily canon". For those who play in the Sword Coast centered Forgotten Realms, maybe Tyranny of Dragons happened (as a weird echo of the Dragonlance saga) maybe it didn't. Maybe Storm King's Thunder had some reaction in part to the giants involvement or lack of involvement in Tyranny or dragons, or maybe STK and/or Tyranny of Dragons didn't happen. Maybe the Fall of Elturel was a big deal as Descent into Avernus was a big part of your game, including prologues dealing with the sanctimonious hypocrisy of its theocracy of Elturgard ... or maybe Elturel never fell and the Companion was actually a good gift from Torm or whoever.
I've run Descent into Avernus before, but in my game now I'm using Bernie the Barber and Arkhan's camp in ways very different than the way they were presented in the module. As far as my present game goes, DitA never happened but anyone familiar with the module knows where I'm getting those two figures from (and had DitA never been written, I doubt I would have had the idea for characters like them). Folks may recognize them in a "I see what you're doing there" but I'd be very perplexed if anyone thought I was using them wrong. And that's the extent of lore functional utility in the game as played. Sure it's fun to look into lore, I do deep dives all the time, but lore shouldn't dictate, just inspire.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I’m not trying to single you out, but your terminology is something I can use to start saying the point I’m trying to make.
I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and yes this is relevant. For ten whole years I’ve been fighting a glitch in my brain that caused me to suffer, my family to suffer because of me, and nearly caused things I don’t want to contemplate. I don’t feel like I’m overly exaggerating when I call this disease an evil.
My experience is not unique and definitely not the worst example of people suffering from, as you say, “soulless, mindless, will-less” evils. Diseases, mental illnesses, natural disasters, take your pick. You yourself my have experienced any of these, and if so I apologize if I have presumed you haven’t in this writing.
The idea of the impersonal evil force, often embodied as monstrous beings (which I’ll concede that D&D orc, kobolds, and such have always been too humanlike to really count for) as always represented in my mind these things. So I hope you understand that my fantasies of fighting these forces and monsters are every bit as important to me as yours about standing up against the humans who also mess the world up.
You already stated that this doesn't apply to Orcs, Kobolds, and the like. Which specific player races does this apply to? If none of them, then I would have to say that it is hardly relative to the discussion. The errata didn't make Beholders, Fire Giants or Devils any less evil for example, it just affects player races. You still have a whole Monsters Manual (plus many many more monsters) that are the embodiment of evil to fight without any issues of morality to get in the way.
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This isn't necessarily so. The reason many of us are all riled up is because they specifically did say changes being made included mindflayers and beholders as an example. Similarly, you are even stating formerly monster races as player races in your question. What makes an Orc or Kobold any more 'human' than a fire giant? Fire Giants have a culture and society too and an INT score of 6 or above; i.e. they are sapient/sentient 'free willed' entities; perhaps even more so than orcs in certain iterations of the lore. Why does an Orc desrve to be considered a player race now rather than a monster race moreso than a Fire-Giant? Is it just because of mechanical issues associated with their size? - cause size notwithstanding, Giants have already been culturally disney-fied over the last few decades too; and presumably alignment affiliations are being removed from them too along with most other ones.
I think gnolls were mentioned as one that they're not doing it to; and that makes even less sense. Even in the core setting lore, gnolls weren't made by their god and therefore presumably have even more free will than orcs do - and there are half-gnolls too.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Did you read the post that I quoted? THEY said that Orcs and Kobolds are too human to count. Also, WotC says that Orcs are a player race and Fire Giants aren't.
Secondly, the Errata does not change the alignment of Mind Flayers or Beholders or any other monster it only removed redundant information and descriptions of specific acts of violence. Have you read the errata?
Edit: Orcs as a playable race isn't even new to D&D and as been a thing since at least 2nd edition..
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No it didn't. Sure, it made some small changes to the text, but it was mostly to get rid of redundant material, not to make Mind Flayers and Beholders good guys now.
And if they are . . . so what? Large Luigi from Spelljammer is a Beholder Barkeep, and he's been a part of the game for about 30 years. There have been good Mind Flayers for decades, too. They're not the majority, and their existence is still morally questionable, but they've existed, and I haven't seen anyone yelling/whining about those NPCs when they came out.
Your logical fallacy is "whataboutism", and it isn't even an accurate one.
There have been good giants in D&D's history. Harshnag the Good Frost Giant plays a major role in Storm King's Thunder, when Frost Giants in the Monster Manual are listed as being Neutral Evil (that whole adventure has a ton of examples of "My Species Doth Protest Too Much" NPCs, where it's clear that giants are "People" and not just "Monsters").
So, by all means, the next Monster Manual should absolutely treat Giants, Orcs, Kobolds, and the lot as "people", if they are people. If they aren't people (beasts, oozes, most undead, most constructs, most aberrations, etc), don't treat them like they are.
(As a side note, I absolutely hate this edition's treatment of Gnolls. Gnolls have traditionally been playable in many D&D settings, but for some reason D&D 5e decided to roll back the clock and make them Demons in All But Name. If they're demons, just call them demons. If they aren't, let them be playable! Goddammit Wizards!)
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"Demonic Origin. The origin of the gnolls traces back to a time when the demon lord Yeenoghu found his way to the Material Plane and ran amok. Packs of ordinary hyenas followed in his wake, scavenging the demon lord’s kills. Those hyenas were transformed into the first gnolls, parading after Yeenoghu until he was banished back to the Abyss. The gnolls then scattered across the face of the world, a dire reminder of demonic power." - Quoted from the Monsters Manual
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Because apparently this needs to be posted for everyone to read again.
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Nor am I denigrating that fantasy. D&D, at its core, is a Hero Fantasy game. The players are Heroes (or bloody well should be, anyways), and that means there are Evils for the Heroes to combat. Sometimes those Evils are going to be orcish raiders, kobold dragon cultists, or goblin thieves and throat-cutters, just as much as those Evils are sometimes human versions of those same things. Sometimes those Evils are going to be aberrations, monstrosities from beyond the stars that have no place in a healthy land and sicken the world with their very presence. Their very classification - aberration - marks them as Other, as something that doesn't belong here. While a rare few of them - or even entire civilizations of them - might buck the trend and become mild new neighbors, many of them are so alien that even though they have the capacity to communicate with us, they rarely have reason to.
No one is arguing that Evil doesn't exist. The arguments are against needlessly applying a broad-strokes 'Evil' brush to things that do not merit it and limiting new play groups in what they can do. Were I DMing for your table by random cosmic happenstance, I would likely lean into aberrations as a villainous force for the campaign, commensurate with their status as a sickness in reality itself. Star Spawn are especially good for that sort of storyline, one could make entire campaigns around seeking to purge and finally cure an incursion of Star Spawn withering away at the world around it. Star Spawn doesn't consider itself evil, of course - but what does it care about the concerns of the fragile, temporary little meat-things thronging the land? They don't register on its radar save as a means of spreading its influence once properly modified; it's on the Heroes of the game to stop these things from enacting their will on the world.
The only real change any of this errata of late makes - and this specific errata doesn't even really do this save for drow PCs - is a shift in emphasis. The onus is on the DM to figure out why their Villain is Villainous. Orcs can still be villains. So can goblins, kobolds, bugbears, any of the historically 'Bad Guy' species. These days, they need a reason to be villainous. Just like any other species. That reason doesn't necessarily have to be complex, and some tables will happily accept "because they're orcs, duh?" as the reason for Villainous orcs. But the onus is still there, on the DM, rather than being hard-baked into the lore and thus something other tables and other DMs have to work much harder to scrape out of the game if they don't want it.
The tables for which "...they're orcs, that's why they're evil" is sufficient don't really need to do any work, no matter what the books say. Those tables will never have an issue murdering orcs in batch lots, and if that's the game they love to play then I wish success and much orc death upon their game night. It's just easier for everybody else if the books are neutral and provide us the option, rather than attempting to categorically sell things as Always Chaotic Evil Forever that, realistically, have not been so for many years. Drow are an excellent example - there's been so many drow PCs, so many stories of renegade drow fighting to stick it to Lolth, and so many subversions of the 'Drow are EVIL!' thing that frankly the species' reputation as hilariously over-evil forever-villains is kinda beyond salvation anyways. In real terms, drow have just been an exotic PC option for years now, with some tables clinging to past editions' lore and breaking the dice hands of any player who suggests playing one while other tables have never bothered restricting them and just figured ordinary, not-evil Heroic drow came from somewhere. The errata is not "changing" anything, it's simply aligning the books with how a very significant chunk of the playerbase already plays, and what Wizards knows the trend for this species is.
If fighting impersonal, undisguised evil is important to your games? Then do it, and take joy in it. Some of us simply have different aspirations, and we'd like the books to work for us as much as they work for you rather than having to fight them at every third word.
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If you actually read the errata, and other documentation that has been provided you many times and see that the modifications to player races and modifications to monsters are different things for different reasons, the former to remove any explicit essentializing of evil, the latter to encourage DMs to consider the broader lore of the monster besides the scant paragraph saying "play it like this." Again, if you actually read the substance of the changed texts and not some internet pot stirring. The fact that your using mindflayers and beholders as an example shows you haven't done the reading this thread is discussing.
This argument I'm sorry is unhinged flailing of as Third pointed out, Whataboutism. If you can't get your head around why a Fire Giant makes for a mechanically problematic player race than say Orcs, it's sorta a "Bro, do you even D&D bro?" moment. I don't see a lot of what anyone would call "Disney-fying" of Fire Giants. You know this is a discussion primarily about Volo's right? You know there's a pretty substantial chapter on Giants, including Fire Giants in Volo's including a pretty explicit section on their use of slaves ... with a short blurb that comes down to a "back breaking labor" grimdark joke being the only that that got excised. You are arguing against a fiction of "what's being done to D&D" that largely exists in your own head and nowhere else. Folks have tried to help you get a clearer understanding of the place of lore as well as inclusive and broader game play considerations. If you want to continue to use this thread as your vanity grievance space, flailing at some invisible mover of your cheese, try to at least talk about things that have actually happened in texts, don't argue from a position of half to quarter understanding.
"core setting lore" isn't a thing, since the game is largely setting agnostic. If you read the write up in the MM, which are part of the core rules to the game, you'd see how Gnolls function in this edition regardless of what you think you know of gnolls and "half gnolls." If you want to go deeper into the depcition of gnolls, you could read Volo's.
At the end of the day the pages you've provided in this thread comes down to "There's a book I'm evidently unfamiliar with. Changes were made to it. I'm upset about this." And you call that a position? You seem to have a game you're happy with, so I just don't see what the grousing is about.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
There's a stance I hold, when I talk about these things to people who are more tolerant, understanding, and introspective than others about the matter. That stance is that the only thing worse than equal opportunity laws, diversity laws, and other legal measures meant to punish exclusionism is what happens when you don't have them.
Yes, forced inclusion is bad. Exclusionism - that is, racism, sexism, creedism, and all the other "isms" people get up to these days - is worse. It's never good to coerce someone into a certain pattern of behavior or thought; if the behavior or pattern of thought is desirable the proper way is to educate someone and allow them to come around to the idea on their own time and of their own volition. I try and do that whenever I can, discuss and explain to folks why some of the ideas they're initially hostile to aren't so bad as all that and might even benefit them, which is why I'm responding to this wildly off-topic post in the first place.
That said...we also can't let people keep getting away with exclusionism. We can't. Part of defeating it is constant vigilance against it, constantly remaining aware of it and knowing when it's poking its nasty face into society...such as when a game has situations in it that very closely mirror real-world exclusionism such as "all the nasty underground darkies are always evil forever and we should all trot down there and let the gods sort 'em out." People cannot be allowed to keep making decisions based on exclusionism, and to do things that support exclusionism, freely if we ever want exclusionism to go away. It's uncomfortable. People hate it. Trust me, the people 'benefitting' from affirmative action, diversity, equal opportunity, and the like hate those laws just as much as everybody else does. We all wish they could just go away, but if "forced inclusion" was abolished now exclusionism of various sorts would run bloody rampant.
We are slowly, painfully, and with a whole lot of kicking and screaming along the way, trying to beat the tribalism out of ourselves as a species and learn how to view one another with compassion and respect rather than with suspicion and hostility. That's going to continue to take many growing pains, and it's going to continue to require measures nobody wishes we had to resort to.
Barbarism? Perhaps. But necessary barbarism in many places and many times. So please, let's avoid further insinuations of hostility if we can?
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Hello TheRealSendBlackup,
Could you elaborate on your comment?
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What about whataboutism? If something is true, it's true for everyone. If someone points out that you are apllying an apparent truth to one type of "person" and not another, it doesn't matter what you label it, it's still a valid point.
Dude, I don't care about what makes a certain creature mechanically feasable as a player class. Whatever features don't, I can work around if I had a player who really wanted to play one - whether by using a half-human template (i.e Hagrid) or a cursed ring of reduce creature, or some other excuse to adapt the mechanics to suit the plot.
No, I mean the cultural perception of giants IRL. They are now B.F.G. and the Ghost of Chrisman Present, and Tiny and his family from Once Upon a Time, etc. They aren't the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk anymore. Rather the perception of Jack and the beanstalk has changed such that Jack isn't really the hero of the piece but rather he is someone who has basically robbed and murdered someone else. This is uncomfortable as when you apply simialr logic to most of the mosters; the party are basically robbing and murdering them too.
No? I thought this discussion is also/primarily about the proposed upcoming errata for reprints of the MM etc. re the 50th anniversary edition. What's the matter with Volo's?
Yeah, I've got no problem with a joke about backbreaking labor being revised out. My issue is with citing Fire giants as an exception to the jist of the statement "It's racist to presume a type of sapient beings: specifically stated as 'people' re a monster type; have an evil nature - and you're referencing fire giant slavery to me as an example of their evilness; obviously my response will be to remind you that Drow and Orcs have slaves too whom they also overwork and treat harshly; and worse - before Half-Orcs were a product of marriage alliances between hill tibes of Orcs and Men against a common foe it was pretty explicitly implied that they were a product Orc raiders ****** their victims and either leaving them in the pillaged village or taking them away as slaves. They removed this monstrousness from Orcs. If they wanted to, they could remove monstrousness from Giants too. There is no reason from the ethical standpoint your side likes to argue, that Giants should be an exception to being humanized/antropomorphised.
The point of 'fussing' isn't really about what's already hppened, it's about things that haven't happened yet having the possibility of being reconsidered if seems the proposal is being met with more disaproval than approval. My side has a bad habit of keeping silent before things happen and then being angy after the fact. It's better if we clarify our positions before people who are change of production lines make all of their final decisions.
dude, this: Gnolls are feral, hyena-headed humanoids that attack without warning, slaughtering their victims and devouring their flesh. doesn't help me, and could just as easly be an entry which reads Orcs are feral, tusk-mouthed humanoids that attack without warning, slaughtering their victims and devouring their flesh. Their demonic origins entry doesn't contradict my staement about not having been created; or if you like, I'll clarify as 'directly' created by their god. I'm afraid it's going to take me a little while to read Volo's. I've not unlocked it yet, and I need to finish unlocking Tasha's and the other book of everything one first. Anyway, MM doesn't change the point that gnolls have sapience/sentience and therefore presumably free will - if you are in the camp that says alignment is a product of choice; rather than something tangible that is a product of either mystical or biological influences; and this contradicts their thirst for blood entry which states their hearts are devoid of goodness or compassion and lacks a consciense as would a demon. Again, I see no reason why this sort of generalization should be acceptable to apply to gnolls but not to Orcs/Goblins/Kobolds/etc. Either everyone with a 6 or more in INT should be considered as having 'personhood' at least to some degree; and if not, there is no reason to specifically single out some monsters over others to deserve the privilige.
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.
Ah, don't mind me. I'm an old enough man that grousing is just a hobbey of mine. Particularly in this day and age (pandemic season) I don't have many avenues for self-expression besides internet forums. It feels good to get things off my chest sometimes. I happen to be on DDB a lot atm working on my campaign, so when I need a break and notice a red circle on my bell icon, I click it and respond to the last reply then scroll down to see what I missed.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
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.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I'm wondering why it cannot be the other way around?
People were always allowed to play their way without regard to what the sources stated. Inclusivity was always up to the table no matter what was printed. I saw streams doing things already contrary to pre-errata settings before the errata and TCoE.
I suppose it can be like changing things to how some people already played (which is why the changes don't bother me none), but what about those who played closer to the unmitigated harsh-reality lore before the changes—the grit and grime of the setting that drew in a lot of players versus the social utopias?
I can see how some people are feeling pressured by the official changes to use the social utopia settings lest they be called exclusive whereas players like us who chose to ignore stigmas didn't need any official source saying it was okay.
While I like to get away from reality, I also prefer some connection with the way things were to get away from modern reality where what I am matters far less now than it did in history. I can appreciate how far we've come in both the comparison with history (even though we still have some more to do today) and as well as the modern self-reliance to change the setting as we choose without needing permission to do so. I liked being the exception and finding the exception in the past rather than painting pretty colors over everything for me comfort. I feel like someone is pandering to me—something that does not bring me any pride to what I am.
We all can easily type that other people are allowed to not change and to play the "old style" of lore, but the reality is that a negative stigma has been placed on those who do just that and don't change—a stigma that had no equivalent for those of us who played differently than the official lore back then.
It just feels unnecessary and a bit like mere marketing and posturing rather than sincerity.
I didn't need WotC's permission then. They granted it to me anyway at the cost of shaming those who prefer to conquer certain issues found commonly is such old civilizations.
I dunno. It's all become muddied in my head, and I feel like it wasn't prior.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
WotC needed to do it because they want to make money. Society is changing, they either need to change with it or they would be left with nothing but a dwindling group of aging players and would soon be out of business. It isn't all that hard to figure out. They aren't trend setting here, they are just following the money.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Which thread is the one talking about upcomming errata? The poll thread said it wasn't that one either.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
new-books-new-edition-confirmed
This one is talking about the next edition. I recommend reading everything in it before starting to beat the dead horse some more.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
There is no thread about upcoming errata because there is no "upcoming" errata. They don't announce it, they just release it. If you're looking for a place to vent about how people are Ruining D&D Forever(C) by demanding that old DMs stop breaking their fingers whenever they try and play something other than a human (because despite what EricHVela says, there is absolutely a stigma, and often a very strong one, against 'breaking the mold' and playing something different from the established traditions of the game in Old Gamer circles), then you can try and start one, or you can continue to vent in here. Either way, people will push back against it because we like our fingers unbroken whenever at all possible.
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