By profession I am an educator. I get a very short amount of time with students (predominantly in their early to mid 20s) in which to pour bucketloads if technical information as well as emotional feedback. I cannot give too much away publicly, but part of my job is sensitivity training. Inevitably, through the course of an instruction at least once, a student will say some variation of “I don’t understand.”
Now, I could give them the short answer, but then they would have learned nothing. They would know what to put on the test, but they still wouldn’t really understand it. Instead, I have been trained to challenge them sufficiently so that they have the opportunity to understand it for themselves. My boss’s motto: “Challenge, don’t ‘teach.’” By providing a safe, structured environment in which they make mistakes and therefore figure it out for themselves, they learn to be better. Through adversity, comes enlightenment.
When I say “D&D needs Stormtroopers” what I mean is that 11 year olds need a D&D where it’s okay to kill “bad guys” and take their stuff because, for an 11 year old, that’s fun. And those 11 year olds need to have clear-cut, defined “bad guys” to point their swords at without feeling guilty. As those 11 year olds get older, and enter adolescence... with hormones, their story will naturally change. Que the busty bar wenches and such.
I agree that D&D when you start out normally needs distinct bad guys and good guys. Those still will exist. Aberrations are evil in their nature, Fiends are 99.99% evil all the time, and so on. Cultists are evil, as they worship deities that demand sacrifices and other evil acts.
A DM can just ignore the new inclusive rules and have things remain as they were before.
As those hormonal adolescents grow into more mature young adults, their stories will change again. They will start to question the world around them and make decisions for themselves as to what is right and what is wrong based on their experiences. And many of those young adults look at the concept of Orcs as “bad guys” and start to question it, eventually change it for themselves.
Eventually those young adults will grow into actual adults and become the fine people in this very forum. We all had the opportunity to become better because we were challenged to within a hobby we all love. Look at us now.
We became better because we were given a reason to. They could have said “Orcs are people too” and we would have known what to “put on the test,” but we wouldn’t have understood it, not really. Because we’re allowed to explore that concept to its natural conclusion for ourselves, we understand why Orcs are people too.
If we take that challenge away from tomorrow’s young adults, we have taken away their right to learn. We have done them a disservice. Remember that butterfly I mentioned? Don’t kill it with “kindness.”
It doesn't take the challenge away from them to make the game more open minded.
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The main problem I have with it as well is that their complaints are factually false. Psychologists have studied the impact of rpgs on racism and have consistently found that those who play rpgs tend to show improved socialization and good moral development. If their complaints had any merit this would not be the case. We need to get back to a world where facts and stats are what matters again. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/checkpoints/202004/no-orcs-arent-racist
I would be careful quoting Ferguson as a source, he's a biological essentialist and believes that race determines intelligence potential, he regularly conflates sex with gender, and he believes that beating your children is the only sure way to discipline them.
The main problem I have with it as well is that their complaints are factually false. Psychologists have studied the impact of rpgs on racism and have consistently found that those who play rpgs tend to show improved socialization and good moral development. If their complaints had any merit this would not be the case. We need to get back to a world where facts and stats are what matters again. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/checkpoints/202004/no-orcs-arent-racist
I would be careful quoting Ferguson as a source, he's a biological essentialist and believes that race determines intelligence potential, he regularly conflates sex with gender, and he believes that beating your children is the only sure way to discipline them.
That definitely makes him less credible.
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When someone says "this hurts me", our first response should always be to stop doing it immediately. Any discussion about why it hurts and how important it is to find some version of it that works for everyone comes after that. This is Wizards' way of stopping doing something they understand hurts people. That alone is enough for me to see it as a good step forward.
But there are a few things I don't think I've clearly said, so I'll lay it out and then I'll have said my piece.
Here's how I understand the problem:
Orcs and drow are people. There's no reasonable definition of "person" that applies to humans, dwarves, elves, dragonborn and tieflings, but doesn't also apply to orcs or drow. There are plenty of evil, inhuman enemies to fight in D&D; orcs and drow are already not among them. The fact that the game has "half-orcs" and "half-elves" is enough to show that they are people, by the game's own ideas of who counts.
The default setting of the traditional game still says (until these revisions see the light of day) that "some people are inherently evil". That is essentially saying, "in our fictional world, racists are right" by default. They believe some people are lesser, evil, violent, whatever not because their actions show them to be so, but because that is part of their nature, and the default D&D game says they're right. Exceptions like Drizzt "prove the rule" - that he is "the only good Drow" shows how evil they naturally are, and that he is an aberration. Under the default assumptions of D&D, meeting Drizzt or the good Drow at your table doesn't cause you to rethink everything you know about Drow culture, it can only reaffirm it.
Add in that the language used about these peoples in particular is, as they say in their statement, "painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated". The terms we use to describe orcs come from the way historical and contemporary racists have and continue to describe real people in the real world. That includes the ideas that half-orcs are "better" than their orc parents, because they are literally "more human". That's a real-world racist belief, made factually accurate in the fiction of the game as it currently stands. It means that in the facts of the universe as presented by default, humans, elves and other "good" races must be judged by their actions, but orcs and drow are just evil, no matter what they do.
So if you want to tackle issues of race and discrimination in your game, or indeed avoid them, then it seems to me in both cases these changes are for the better. The current descriptions don't give enough nuance or room to move for you to have stories in which a human culture learns the orcs next door aren't necessarily evil, or that this particular group of marauders need to be stopped because of their deadly actions, not because of their race. They also mean that if you accept the reasons given in-game that killing orcs and drow is okay, you are accepting that racism has a factual basis in D&D - a belief held by the racist elements of our culture in the real world. That's not one I want to reinforce as true, even in fiction.
I do like the idea of an elemental evil, of something faceless and implacable represented by inhuman creatures; that's fun to fight against. It's something I like about Doctor Who. But applying that definition to a group of people - especially one for whom the markers of difference are all akin to those racists have used for centuries to distinguish themselves from those they wish to denigrate and say are lesser - that's gross. I don't like it when they get it wrong in Doctor Who, either, and I'm glad when they change tack to avoid it, as the modern series has done many times.
This is a step in removing the reminders of the harmful real-world ideas as facts in the game. If you want them in there to tell stories about them, or if you want D&D to be an escape from those things, changing these concepts from in-world fact to opinions held by folks in the game world helps you, either way. It's what most of you arguing against this change seem to be saying you already do; it's what Eberron and Wildemount have already done; it's what the already-printed revised books will do.
I've seen no convincing argument that this change does anyone any harm. There's no reason to believe any future similar changes will either. And to advocate not making these changes is to advocate that Wizards of the Coast ignore the problems that have been pointed out to them - that aren't new, that have been discussed about the game for decades, that are definitely a reason people I know have had no interest in playing the game and look elsewhere for fantasy entertainment.
Okay, let's talk about Mind Flayers. Let's show their views on humans:
Inferior in technology and societal structure
Stupid
They have too many emotions and gods that cloud their judgements and make them act rashly
Focus too much on strength of arm and not enough on strength of mind
Barbaric
They're dangerous
And from this they conclude that they're free to do as they wish to humans, because of their inferiority.
Now let's compare that to how humans view orcs:
Inferior in technology and societal structure
Stupid
Their emotions and devotion to gods cloud their judgement.
They focus too much on muscle, and not on tactics.
They're barbaric
They're dangerous.
And, they come to the same conclusion about orcs that mind flayers conclude about humans. The other race is weaker and a hazard, and is therefore it is okay to view them as inferior, and slay them as you wish.
Player characters' and NPCs views on orcs are how we are viewed by Mind Flayers. Do you want to be comparable to an Illithid?
Additionally, many of these "excuses for racism" are also used throughout history by white supremacists and any group that wants to belittle another race.
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Yeah the ones doing this, AS NEVER tried to outdrink a Romani or a Gypsie or a Carni.
I'm carni by the way, and honestly, we start drinking when we're 15...(in civilised countries where the drinking age is 15-16) and we Have no problem with it( technically Alcohol IS a Solution...)
You wanna be accurate?, VISTANI'S NEED to be Heavy drinkers, not every day, but at least 4 times a week they should be Hammered...
I know we do..., and thats no stereotype...
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"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
No kid needed a place to kill bad guys. No kid needed to take other people's stuff. And I am not sure what country you live in where you feel such experiences, even as fictional experiences are necessary.
Maybe it’s a product of the times in which we grew up. But being products of the Action Movie Genre in America, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, and Harrison Ford made it cool to kill bad guys, get better guns of of their corpses, and use those to go kill more bad guys.
Kids, particularly 11+, are actually mature enough to understand deeper concepts of 'bad guy' than race based, or clothing based, or any other stereotype you consider convenient. It is rather a lot easier to teach that such stereotyping is bad in the real world when not encouraging it in play. At least it has been so in my experience.
Then why did G.I.Joes always shoot one color laser while Cobras always shot another color? Why is Halo online still Red Vs. Blue?
We had the A Team and the generation before us played 'Cowboys and Indians.' The GI Joes, like the A Team and most other similar shows shot literally thousands of shots at their enemies (and vis versa) without anyone getting hit. The closest they would come to is somehow causing a jeep to flip inexplicably, throwing the bad guys out of it. These are not ideas that really built us a better society. They certainly were not 'needed.'
And? The Imperial troops have faction uniforms too. That does not mean every citizen in the Empire is like-minded with them. Heck, the rebels are imperial citizens. What point are you trying to make here?
Finn in the new movies used to be a Storm Trooper as well.
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Now that things have slowed down (I hope), I'd like to take a moment to add my two cents, for whatever they're worth.
I'm biracial. My mother is predominantly Irish, and my father is Mexican. We're lucky in that we can very easily pass for white, but other members of my family are much darker than we are, and there were times when we'd go out where they were treated like shit while were weren't, and there was only one reason for it. When we were younger, my mother, a blonde-haired blue-eyed white woman, was regularly approached by the Klan (yes, THAT Klan) because they wanted to recruit her, not realizing my sister and I were hispanic. As I've grown older, I've come across more and more times where people would strike up conversation, only for it to turn into a racist rant against Mexicans with me having to hide behind my white skin because a previously pleasant conversation suddenly turned very dangerous (and also, being a gay man, I just have to say, being a Mexican and hearing a racist tirade against my own people feels exactly the same as being a gay man and hearing a tirade against "queers"). For the past four years, I have heard more and more about how my people are "rapists" "drug dealers" "disease carriers" "murderers" and just on, and on, and on. I can confirm, it is ******* frustrating and exhausting.
I'm also lucky, because I do have white skin that helps shield me from that shit. Black people, Native people, others who have dark skin, have it way worse than I do. And when a Black person says "there are harmful and reductive tropes in this game that resemble the real world racism I have had to deal with on a regular basis, and it needs to go", I'm inclined to believe them, and I support their position. I'm not sure how far it needs to go and where it ends, but some things are easy to figure out, and there's no reason why we shouldn't take care of it there.
Sorry, that turned out a bit longer than I intended. But, ****, I've been sitting on a lot of that shit for a while now, and looking at it there's waaaaaaay more for me to add, but it's just, ****. I'm gonna leave it there.
Okay, I lied a little about leaving it there. I'm not saying you can't have good and evil races in your world if you want, I'm sure most everyone has their own legitimate reasons for why they would want to do that. But, for other people who have to live with things like that it in real life? This is something they need.
They were perfect capable of writing a non drunk vistani, they just didn't.. thats is not censorship they could have done it and still be able write drunk vistanis
but now they have decided to write one over the other or should i say "they will do better" or change a existing one to another - their prerogative
"Expressing one's current opinion is technically censorship" nah that is not right at all
You know orcs can be good and they can be bad you and I agree right, also do you agree Vistanis can be sober and can be drunk?
IF their changes are to be more inclusive i.e. there will be drunk vistanis and sober vistanis, good orcs and evil orcs, bad drows and good drows... that is oke
I will reiterate, I agree with wizards changes if they mean they will be more diverse on their writing I will disagree if it means they will never again write things based on angry tweets
Yeah the ones doing this, AS NEVER tried to outdrink a Romani or a Gypsie or a Carni.
I'm carni by the way, and honestly, we start drinking when we're 15...(in civilised countries where the drinking age is 15-16) and we Have no problem with it( technically Alcohol IS a Solution...)
You wanna be accurate?, VISTANI'S NEED to be Heavy drinkers, not every day, but at least 4 times a week they should be Hammered...
I know we do..., and thats no stereotype...
I know what to say here, wait.... Your table your game...
But in my table? you are a bigot and racist (just making a point not calling anyone these things here)
because WoTC said these things were bad things.
So basically the vistani are not going to be ever drunk on a WoTC products because it is reductive and negative depiction close to real world groups (unless they mean they want more examples of vistanis like good ones and bad ones)
May be only your general run of the mill NPC will be so drunk they have disadvantage or do you think people that experienced alcohol problems in real life might be hurt about it?
Like jdwx said on their pax example, it might be a player that had issues with alcohol in their live should you on the go take that bit out or risk offending the player or do you prefer WoTC remove every reference to drinking from the game to make it easy for you?
WoTC to protect their bottom line and avoid controversy I would suggest they remove any and all references to drinking from their products
What next ? what other real world problems will WoTC decide to fix in fictitious worlds? homelessness, poverty, drugs, we could come up with numerous things we just need to write a well written angry tweet at WoTC and boom we fixed homelessness or drug abuse in a fictitious world.
We can create numerous perfect examples that pluck our heartstrings and chime our Samaritan bones just needs to be well written
the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
WoTC made a statement these things are bad and wont be included on their game, players will read and think these things are bad and players that use it will be seen as bad even tho we all say your table your game.
May be that is what everyone wants - fix real world problems in fictitious worlds at the cost of making real world people feel bad and be bullied
or
Fix real world problems in fictitious worlds so that some people in the real world dont feel bad at the expense of some other people that will bullied
You know WoTC could have done these things an not bothered virtue signalling at all and I bet no one would have noticed.
May be I am expecting mature adult content in their games but wizards if writing content that needs to be oke for 12 years old. (I think that is the general age of basic dnd in most countries)
I am getting upset that I cant find game of thrones themes in the teens section of a book store? (rhetorical question)
May be it is oke it doesnt matter what WoTC does with their products as long as the basic rules are good
Is it particularly important to the story for them to be drunk? Why, exactly?
The problem is not that these particular Vistani /Romani are drunk, but that most such portrayals are of them being drunk. Thus these not being drunk is an exception. Some day, when there are fewer stereotypical portrayals, then portraying such characters in such manners will no longer be stereotypical. And at that point it really will be a better world. At the moment there is no shortage of such portrayals in the world, so there is no particular need to defend the inclusion of any given such portrayal.
And yes, being an author is hard.
Yep that can i get behind they mean they want more examples of vistanis that are good ones not at the expense of bad ones. They could have been more explicit about this
We should not demonise players that want the bad examples in their campaigns or products which you can see it happening in discussion on the internet (not here tho discourse has been really good).
Anyway i feel I made my points I think I learnt a lot from everyone and I came out with a refined perceptive with more questions and things to think about.
I shall catapult myself out of this conversation and lurk a bit more.
Wow this is dragging on at light speed. I went to bed and came back to find a forum topic went from 2 pages to 10?! Croikey.
If people are incapable of splitting down the middle from realism and fantasy then that group shouldn't be anywhere near games in the first place. This feels like a debate at the gaming table suddenly begins to take a turn to becoming an OOC conversation, leading to an argument phase that basically grows way out of proportion. It's not really helping anyone and I feel like this whole discussion board isn't making any kind of leeway. It's just one big venting board.
I agree that D&D when you start out normally needs distinct bad guys and good guys. Those still will exist. Aberrations are evil in their nature, Fiends are 99.99% evil all the time, and so on. Cultists are evil, as they worship deities that demand sacrifices and other evil acts.
A DM can just ignore the new inclusive rules and have things remain as they were before.
It doesn't take the challenge away from them to make the game more open minded.
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I would be careful quoting Ferguson as a source, he's a biological essentialist and believes that race determines intelligence potential, he regularly conflates sex with gender, and he believes that beating your children is the only sure way to discipline them.
That definitely makes him less credible.
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When someone says "this hurts me", our first response should always be to stop doing it immediately. Any discussion about why it hurts and how important it is to find some version of it that works for everyone comes after that. This is Wizards' way of stopping doing something they understand hurts people. That alone is enough for me to see it as a good step forward.
But there are a few things I don't think I've clearly said, so I'll lay it out and then I'll have said my piece.
Here's how I understand the problem:
So if you want to tackle issues of race and discrimination in your game, or indeed avoid them, then it seems to me in both cases these changes are for the better. The current descriptions don't give enough nuance or room to move for you to have stories in which a human culture learns the orcs next door aren't necessarily evil, or that this particular group of marauders need to be stopped because of their deadly actions, not because of their race. They also mean that if you accept the reasons given in-game that killing orcs and drow is okay, you are accepting that racism has a factual basis in D&D - a belief held by the racist elements of our culture in the real world. That's not one I want to reinforce as true, even in fiction.
I do like the idea of an elemental evil, of something faceless and implacable represented by inhuman creatures; that's fun to fight against. It's something I like about Doctor Who. But applying that definition to a group of people - especially one for whom the markers of difference are all akin to those racists have used for centuries to distinguish themselves from those they wish to denigrate and say are lesser - that's gross. I don't like it when they get it wrong in Doctor Who, either, and I'm glad when they change tack to avoid it, as the modern series has done many times.
This is a step in removing the reminders of the harmful real-world ideas as facts in the game. If you want them in there to tell stories about them, or if you want D&D to be an escape from those things, changing these concepts from in-world fact to opinions held by folks in the game world helps you, either way. It's what most of you arguing against this change seem to be saying you already do; it's what Eberron and Wildemount have already done; it's what the already-printed revised books will do.
I've seen no convincing argument that this change does anyone any harm. There's no reason to believe any future similar changes will either. And to advocate not making these changes is to advocate that Wizards of the Coast ignore the problems that have been pointed out to them - that aren't new, that have been discussed about the game for decades, that are definitely a reason people I know have had no interest in playing the game and look elsewhere for fantasy entertainment.
Here's a comparison for all of you:
Okay, let's talk about Mind Flayers. Let's show their views on humans:
And from this they conclude that they're free to do as they wish to humans, because of their inferiority.
Now let's compare that to how humans view orcs:
And, they come to the same conclusion about orcs that mind flayers conclude about humans. The other race is weaker and a hazard, and is therefore it is okay to view them as inferior, and slay them as you wish.
Player characters' and NPCs views on orcs are how we are viewed by Mind Flayers. Do you want to be comparable to an Illithid?
Additionally, many of these "excuses for racism" are also used throughout history by white supremacists and any group that wants to belittle another race.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
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Yeah the ones doing this, AS NEVER tried to outdrink a Romani or a Gypsie or a Carni.
I'm carni by the way, and honestly, we start drinking when we're 15...(in civilised countries where the drinking age is 15-16) and we Have no problem with it( technically Alcohol IS a Solution...)
You wanna be accurate?, VISTANI'S NEED to be Heavy drinkers, not every day, but at least 4 times a week they should be Hammered...
I know we do..., and thats no stereotype...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
They're Not.
They're Fictional...
"Normality is but an Illusion, Whats normal to the Spider, is only madness for the Fly"
Kain de Frostberg- Dark Knight - (Vengeance Pal3/ Hexblade 9), Port Mourn
Kain de Draakberg-Dark Knight lvl8-Avergreen(DitA)
You know what that means. They're people in terms of D&D people.
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And The Sith always have red light sabers.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Finn in the new movies used to be a Storm Trooper as well.
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Now that things have slowed down (I hope), I'd like to take a moment to add my two cents, for whatever they're worth.
I'm biracial. My mother is predominantly Irish, and my father is Mexican. We're lucky in that we can very easily pass for white, but other members of my family are much darker than we are, and there were times when we'd go out where they were treated like shit while were weren't, and there was only one reason for it. When we were younger, my mother, a blonde-haired blue-eyed white woman, was regularly approached by the Klan (yes, THAT Klan) because they wanted to recruit her, not realizing my sister and I were hispanic. As I've grown older, I've come across more and more times where people would strike up conversation, only for it to turn into a racist rant against Mexicans with me having to hide behind my white skin because a previously pleasant conversation suddenly turned very dangerous (and also, being a gay man, I just have to say, being a Mexican and hearing a racist tirade against my own people feels exactly the same as being a gay man and hearing a tirade against "queers"). For the past four years, I have heard more and more about how my people are "rapists" "drug dealers" "disease carriers" "murderers" and just on, and on, and on. I can confirm, it is ******* frustrating and exhausting.
I'm also lucky, because I do have white skin that helps shield me from that shit. Black people, Native people, others who have dark skin, have it way worse than I do. And when a Black person says "there are harmful and reductive tropes in this game that resemble the real world racism I have had to deal with on a regular basis, and it needs to go", I'm inclined to believe them, and I support their position. I'm not sure how far it needs to go and where it ends, but some things are easy to figure out, and there's no reason why we shouldn't take care of it there.
Sorry, that turned out a bit longer than I intended. But, ****, I've been sitting on a lot of that shit for a while now, and looking at it there's waaaaaaay more for me to add, but it's just, ****. I'm gonna leave it there.
Okay, I lied a little about leaving it there. I'm not saying you can't have good and evil races in your world if you want, I'm sure most everyone has their own legitimate reasons for why they would want to do that. But, for other people who have to live with things like that it in real life? This is something they need.
Sorry but that is the same thing
They choose not to do it i.e. these depiction will not make the editing process i.e. they are not allowed.
They were perfect capable of writing a non drunk vistani, they just didn't.. thats is not censorship they could have done it and still be able write drunk vistanis
but now they have decided to write one over the other or should i say "they will do better" or change a existing one to another - their prerogative
"Expressing one's current opinion is technically censorship" nah that is not right at all
You know orcs can be good and they can be bad you and I agree right, also do you agree Vistanis can be sober and can be drunk?
IF their changes are to be more inclusive i.e. there will be drunk vistanis and sober vistanis, good orcs and evil orcs, bad drows and good drows... that is oke
I will reiterate, I agree with wizards changes if they mean they will be more diverse on their writing
I will disagree if it means they will never again write things based on angry tweets
So basically the vistani are not going to be ever drunk on a WoTC products because it is reductive and negative depiction close to real world groups (unless they mean they want more examples of vistanis like good ones and bad ones)
May be only your general run of the mill NPC will be so drunk they have disadvantage or do you think people that experienced alcohol problems in real life might be hurt about it?
Like jdwx said on their pax example, it might be a player that had issues with alcohol in their live should you on the go take that bit out or risk offending the player or do you prefer WoTC remove every reference to drinking from the game to make it easy for you?
WoTC to protect their bottom line and avoid controversy I would suggest they remove any and all references to drinking from their products
What next ? what other real world problems will WoTC decide to fix in fictitious worlds? homelessness, poverty, drugs, we could come up with numerous things we just need to write a well written angry tweet at WoTC and boom we fixed homelessness or drug abuse in a fictitious world.
We can create numerous perfect examples that pluck our heartstrings and chime our Samaritan bones just needs to be well written
the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
WoTC made a statement these things are bad and wont be included on their game, players will read and think these things are bad and players that use it will be seen as bad even tho we all say your table your game.
May be that is what everyone wants - fix real world problems in fictitious worlds at the cost of making real world people feel bad and be bullied
or
Fix real world problems in fictitious worlds so that some people in the real world dont feel bad at the expense of some other people that will bullied
You know WoTC could have done these things an not bothered virtue signalling at all and I bet no one would have noticed.
Being a publisher or author is hard these days
May be I am expecting mature adult content in their games but wizards if writing content that needs to be oke for 12 years old. (I think that is the general age of basic dnd in most countries)
I am getting upset that I cant find game of thrones themes in the teens section of a book store? (rhetorical question)
May be it is oke it doesnt matter what WoTC does with their products as long as the basic rules are good
Some food for thought for me at least
Yep that can i get behind they mean they want more examples of vistanis that are good ones not at the expense of bad ones. They could have been more explicit about this
We should not demonise players that want the bad examples in their campaigns or products which you can see it happening in discussion on the internet (not here tho discourse has been really good).
Anyway i feel I made my points I think I learnt a lot from everyone and I came out with a refined perceptive with more questions and things to think about.
I shall catapult myself out of this conversation and lurk a bit more.
Wow this is dragging on at light speed. I went to bed and came back to find a forum topic went from 2 pages to 10?! Croikey.
If people are incapable of splitting down the middle from realism and fantasy then that group shouldn't be anywhere near games in the first place. This feels like a debate at the gaming table suddenly begins to take a turn to becoming an OOC conversation, leading to an argument phase that basically grows way out of proportion. It's not really helping anyone and I feel like this whole discussion board isn't making any kind of leeway. It's just one big venting board.
Here listen to some bardcore to calm thy selves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJWvmSJ3k9Q&list=PLBu4P43zHQhVAHjtkGRoGiSPDVn5_VmO_&index=6