I've had it with straight white people crusading in my name.
I am not your pet project. Don't try to be my champion just to make yourself feel better.
From my side, it feels like people are telling me that I'm weak and need their pity.
If you want to help, start by closing your mouths and sitting back from your keyboards and listen to us. Don't talk about us like we're helpless. We obviously CAN speak for ourselves and be heard. Don't drown our voices with yours because you want to participate. If you do, it'll end up with the same result of people not hearing us, but it'll be your fault.
Think about that before you start replying with "how it must feel" for us. We can tell when such speech is not for our benefit.
So with that out of the way, let's hear your thoughts without assumptions about living our lives. K?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
I think that Demons and other fiends should be almost completely evil, but given the fact that Angels and celestials can fall, why can't demons and devils have agency to rise? Sure, they're beings of evil, but they have personalities and ideals as well.
This is a solid point. In Catholic scripture, shades of the dead who have been condemned to hell are entitled to another chance during judgement day. Although demons are not traditionally formed from souls of living beings, but from angels fallen from grace, I don't see why they would be entirely exempt from a similar second judgement in a world where deities are much more fallible than in Catholic dogma. I mean, BG:DiA makes this central to the plot for Zariel. Also, no doubt many of the angels who followed Asmodeus were conned into the act, convinced that his methods were the proper way to enforce cosmic law. Imagine how pissed they'd be having to deal with Mammon's cesspit?
Yeah, demons are harder to redeem than devils or maybe Yugoloths, but I don't think it has to do with souls. Angels aren't created out of souls, are they?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I think that Demons and other fiends should be almost completely evil, but given the fact that Angels and celestials can fall, why can't demons and devils have agency to rise? Sure, they're beings of evil, but they have personalities and ideals as well.
This is a solid point. In Catholic scripture, shades of the dead who have been condemned to hell are entitled to another chance during judgement day. Although demons are not traditionally formed from souls of living beings, but from angels fallen from grace, I don't see why they would be entirely exempt from a similar second judgement in a world where deities are much more fallible than in Catholic dogma. I mean, BG:DiA makes this central to the plot for Zariel. Also, no doubt many of the angels who followed Asmodeus were conned into the act, convinced that his methods were the proper way to enforce cosmic law. Imagine how pissed they'd be having to deal with Mammon's cesspit?
Yeah, demons are harder to redeem than devils or maybe Yugoloths, but I don't think it has to do with souls. Angels aren't created out of souls, are they?
Does redemption mean the character should have been demptioned once before? An entity that was created with Evil and has only known Evil as the only way, can that entity learn a new path? I like to think so, but such a journey will be a fantastic one of many trials and growth never seen more than once in an age.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
I think that Demons and other fiends should be almost completely evil, but given the fact that Angels and celestials can fall, why can't demons and devils have agency to rise? Sure, they're beings of evil, but they have personalities and ideals as well.
This is a solid point. In Catholic scripture, shades of the dead who have been condemned to hell are entitled to another chance during judgement day. Although demons are not traditionally formed from souls of living beings, but from angels fallen from grace, I don't see why they would be entirely exempt from a similar second judgement in a world where deities are much more fallible than in Catholic dogma. I mean, BG:DiA makes this central to the plot for Zariel. Also, no doubt many of the angels who followed Asmodeus were conned into the act, convinced that his methods were the proper way to enforce cosmic law. Imagine how pissed they'd be having to deal with Mammon's cesspit?
Yeah, demons are harder to redeem than devils or maybe Yugoloths, but I don't think it has to do with souls. Angels aren't created out of souls, are they?
Does redemption mean the character should have been demptioned once before? An entity that was created with Evil and has only known Evil as the only way, can that entity learn a new path? I like to think so, but such a journey will be a fantastic one of many trials and growth never seen more than once in an age.
In Wildemount, orcs are born with an evil curse from Gruumsh that gives them near demonic rage. They're born into evil, only know evil, and can be redeemed in Wildemount.
I like to believe this is true for demons and devils as well.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I would like to say, as a BIPOC member of this community i never saw these races as direct references to Black< Indigionus and People of Color, but the extreme parallels between the real world and certain aspects of these different groups was super uncomfortable for me to read so i changed all of them right off the bat.
I saw a person on reddit point it out perfectly basically say; Fantasy writing heavily leans on simplifying alien or outcast races as being of a single culture (Think Klingon). And then any member of these races that 'defect' from the traditional depictions are automatically seen as superior.
This is just completely and utterly WRONG. Looking at just one race- the humans of earth- there is an immeasurable amount diversity, so much so that sometimes we as a species have a hard time coping with it.
Its not that we want all flavor and story to be watered down and boring, bigotry can be a very interesting topic to overcome when its not forced upon players who dont want to deal with these real world problems in their escapism. I simply want to see concrete options that allow diversification and options in my fantasy setting, without having to do every single little bit of work to fix it myself.
I would like to say, as a BIPOC member of this community i never saw these races as direct references to Black< Indigionus and People of Color, but the extreme parallels between the real world and certain aspects of these different groups was super uncomfortable for me to read so i changed all of them right off the bat.
I saw a person on reddit point it out perfectly basically say; Fantasy writing heavily leans on simplifying alien or outcast races as being of a single culture (Think Klingon). And then any member of these races that 'defect' from the traditional depictions are automatically seen as superior.
This is just completely and utterly WRONG. Looking at just one race- the humans of earth- there is an immeasurable amount diversity, so much so that sometimes we as a species have a hard time coping with it.
Its not that we want all flavor and story to be watered down and boring, bigotry can be a very interesting topic to overcome when its not forced upon players who dont want to deal with these real world problems in their escapism. I simply want to see concrete options that allow diversification and options in my fantasy setting, without having to do every single little bit of work to fix it myself.
This ^ ^ ^. Every word of it.
D&D should be inclusive as a base ruleset, and if you want evil orcs in your campaign, you do the work to justify it. We shouldn't have to justify diversity and inclusivity in D&D.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I had this conversation with someone in one of these forums who actually said: “Why’s it gotta be the dark elves that are evil and live underground?!?” When I explained that Drow were actually a pale, ashen grey color they were flabbergasted. They literally had no idea that “dark elves” in no way referenced their skin pigmentation. It seems this argument comes from ignorance more than actual morality.
There's also the fact that they are based on the dokkalfar/svartalfar from ancient norse and germaic lore and they were assuredly /not nice/. Many of the books describe the drow as being obsidian though, rather than gray. The best thing they could do imo to quash this would be to ret-con them all to dark grey (because nobody complains about grey dwarves being evil), and turn the sun elves dark brown (even though canon FR has dark brown "dark elves" who aren't evil).
The idea for a dark-skinned race of subterranean elves came from the svartalfar, yes, but the similarities stop there, the depiction of drow in D&D, especially in the Forgotten Realms, is very far removed from that. Saying that recoloring dark elves to be grey, or or yellow, or purple with pink stripes is completely missing the point of why there are complaints. Grey dwarves don't attract complaints because grey dwarves don't code so strongly for unfortunate racial (and gender) stereotypes and also because grey dwarves aren't featured in anywhere near the prominence that dark elves are.
Exactly. I think the part that everyone keeps overlooking is this is not specifically about color, its about ignorance. Saying that they are "based off a centuries old folktale" as justification to keep the abhorrent and racist descriptions of these people is wrong. Ancient peoples were also racist, especially the norse
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 ****ing 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.
I hate how relatable this is. (Also quoting because i feel too many people skimmed without actually reading the importance of this message
Been thinking about this, specifically in the context of the long descriptions in Volo's.
I think those descriptions are hugely useful and good sources of inspiration. They're very detailed with a lot of complex interrelationships. Great source material for a DM looking for some bad guys with some dimension to them.
But I don't think they need to be presented as blanket descriptions of whole races to serve that purpose.
One alternative might be to make them even more specific. Kind of like how Tales from the Yawning Portal gives you ideas and specific dungeons to insert into your campaign world, not a entire campaign world.
For example, instead of saying "this is how Orcs behave," perhaps it would be enough to say "Like all humanoids, orcs are very diverse. But this is how the Grok-Muk tribe of Orcs in the Forgotten Realms behave." They could even then be more specific and talk about named NPCs in that tribe and give DM's some ideas for how to run an orc BBEG. Then, you can drop part or all the Grok-Muk tribe into your campaign if they fit. And you can do it without turning the orc spice merchant strolling down the streets of Waterdeep checking his magical gold pocketwatch into some kind of bizarre outlier who needs a massive justification and backstory just to exist. (Though backstory benefits all NPCs, I tend to wait to find out which ones the players engage with before I go too far down that road.) Or, if you prefer, you can say, yup, sounds good, all orcs in my world act like the Grok-Muk tribe. Your call.
Another alternative, which I think I like a little bit less, would be to make those descriptions into race-independent "society" templates. So you pick a race and a society. Kind of like the board game Small World.
For example, maybe in your campaign Yeenoghu's passage corrupted dragon eggs instead of hyenas, creating kobolds that are now thoroughly evil and exist only to serve his desire to end all things. This seems harder to do and harder to use, though. You're going to have to do something to glue any particular combo together. (It may actually be more like what WOTC has in mind for PCs when they talk about "a way for a player to customize their character’s origin, including the option to change the ability score increases.")
Yes, you are right that D&D is about creativity, but what Wizards is trying to do right now is make it so you don’t have to work as hard when you do change it away from a world of simplistic monolithic cultures.
I've had it with straight white people crusading in my name.
I am not your pet project. Don't try to be my champion just to make yourself feel better.
From my side, it feels like people are telling me that I'm weak and need their pity.
If you want to help, start by closing your mouths and sitting back from your keyboards and listen to us. Don't talk about us like we're helpless. We obviously CAN speak for ourselves and be heard. Don't drown our voices with yours because you want to participate. If you do, it'll end up with the same result of people not hearing us, but it'll be your fault.
Think about that before you start replying with "how it must feel" for us. We can tell when such speech is not for our benefit.
So with that out of the way, let's hear your thoughts without assumptions about living our lives. K?
Here is something else I keep seeing from straight white people:
Taking one person's story and basing everything on that one person's story.
That's no different than the whole statements of "how it must feel" to be us.
It's still stereotyping, and we can tell that you just want to look good when you say such things. If you really want to help, listen without judgment. Stop making these assumptions about our lives. Repeating one of our individual stories and saying, "This is how it's like for them," shows you don't really know and shouldn't really be saying anything.
Don't speak for us. You can't. Don't try. Just listen.
If you want to speak, speak for yourself and only for yourself. Don't use us as some excuse just so you can speak.
Again, we're not your pet project.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
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.
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 ****ing 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.
I realized today that I hadn’t responded to this. I’m so sorry this happens to you and to others. It’s wrong. Thank you for sharing your story and helping us to see the reality of what happens too often in our world.
I've had it with straight white people crusading in my name.
I am not your pet project. Don't try to be my champion just to make yourself feel better.
From my side, it feels like people are telling me that I'm weak and need their pity.
If you want to help, start by closing your mouths and sitting back from your keyboards and listen to us. Don't talk about us like we're helpless. We obviously CAN speak for ourselves and be heard. Don't drown our voices with yours because you want to participate. If you do, it'll end up with the same result of people not hearing us, but it'll be your fault.
Think about that before you start replying with "how it must feel" for us. We can tell when such speech is not for our benefit.
So with that out of the way, let's hear your thoughts without assumptions about living our lives. K?
Here is something else I keep seeing from straight white people:
Taking one person's story and basing everything on that one person's story.
That's no different than the whole statements of "how it must feel" to be us.
It's still stereotyping, and we can tell that you just want to look good when you say such things. If you really want to help, listen without judgment. Stop making these assumptions about our lives. Repeating one of our individual stories and saying, "This is how it's like for them," shows you don't really know and shouldn't really be saying anything.
Don't speak for us. You can't. Don't try. Just listen.
If you want to speak, speak for yourself and only for yourself. Don't use us as some excuse just so you can speak.
Again, we're not your pet project.
Thank you for the reminder that speaking for others is itself a form of white privilege/supremacy. I went back and read my posts, to be sure I had not done so, and found one place where I did indeed imply that all people of color held the same views; I have edited that.
I will say that in my context (rural, almost exclusively white), if I don’t share the stories and experiences I hear from people of color, then most of the white folk around me will not hear those stories at all. But your comments here remind me that I need to be very careful when I do so, and that finding ways to bring those voices here directly is important.
My story is a oft-hidden story that is more common that one might want to believe.
I'm biracial and homosexual. Where am I getting the most bigotry?
From the Hispanic side.
Most of my Hispanic relatives hate white people based on a stereotype I very rarely experienced. They refuse to accept there are any other kinds of white people at all. They also hate homosexuals in general and merely tolerate those of us they know in the family. They act in the exact same manner that they claim others do but just from the opposite side.
The second most common source of bigotry is from people vocally espousing rights for "my" kind - basing everything on stereotypes and calling me weak. When I see someone going out of their way to make sure everyone in the world knows that they're an "ally", I get suspicious. The goal seems to be praise and not alliance.
My allies simply listen. I listen to them. We tell each other our stories. We break bread together. We find common ground. Then, we set aside everything and enjoy a moment of "sacred ground" where we focus on how we're the same and not what makes us different. We enjoy something together as just people. We become family beyond blood. Then, we hit up our representatives with our experiences. No bells. No whistles. Just getting the job done with no expectation of thanks or praise.
This problem isn't one-sided. Trying to spin the table 180 degrees isn't going to solve anything.
Hate is not the solution to hate. Apathy is not the solution to apathy. Racism is not the solution to racism. Singling people out is not the solution to those people being singled out.
We all work on ourselves or it doesn't work at all.
So, why don't I come forward with this more? I try to focus on what makes us the same to bring us closer together and not what makes me different from you. You can't connect with me over our differences, and a connection is where everything needs to begin. (EDIT: Also, it annoys me when someone takes my story and runs with it, making all kinds of justifications based on it. So, my story is mine. I keep it to my real allies.)
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.
I've had it with straight white people crusading in my name.
I am not your pet project. Don't try to be my champion just to make yourself feel better.
From my side, it feels like people are telling me that I'm weak and need their pity.
If you want to help, start by closing your mouths and sitting back from your keyboards and listen to us. Don't talk about us like we're helpless. We obviously CAN speak for ourselves and be heard. Don't drown our voices with yours because you want to participate. If you do, it'll end up with the same result of people not hearing us, but it'll be your fault.
Think about that before you start replying with "how it must feel" for us. We can tell when such speech is not for our benefit.
So with that out of the way, let's hear your thoughts without assumptions about living our lives. K?
Here is something else I keep seeing from straight white people:
Taking one person's story and basing everything on that one person's story.
That's no different than the whole statements of "how it must feel" to be us.
It's still stereotyping, and we can tell that you just want to look good when you say such things. If you really want to help, listen without judgment. Stop making these assumptions about our lives. Repeating one of our individual stories and saying, "This is how it's like for them," shows you don't really know and shouldn't really be saying anything.
Don't speak for us. You can't. Don't try. Just listen.
If you want to speak, speak for yourself and only for yourself. Don't use us as some excuse just so you can speak.
Again, we're not your pet project.
Thank you for the reminder that speaking for others is itself a form of white privilege/supremacy. I went back and read my posts, to be sure I had not done so, and found one place where I did indeed imply that all people of color held the same views; I have edited that.
I will say that in my context (rural, almost exclusively white), if I don’t share the stories and experiences I hear from people of color, then most of the white folk around me will not hear those stories at all. But your comments here remind me that I need to be very careful when I do so, and that finding ways to bring those voices here directly is important.
Yes - I missed this earlier, and I think I did this too. I apologise. I’m not trying to speak on anyone’s behalf, and I’ll be more careful not to do so.
Tapping away at the dumbphone at work, so apologies for typos.
Honestly I don't see the fuss about changing the game to be more inclusive and less 'accidentally' racist.
Players don't have anything to fight? Are all Orcs bandits, and all Humans gainfully employed? Are all Halflings respectable merchants and all Goblins coin-obsessed bankers? (We're looking at you, Rowling...)
Point is, the game's settings are, unfortunately, set in an 80's mindset. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I loved the 80's, but things have changed, for the better, and to remain relevant, D&D has to change as well.
Need enemies? Agents of a rival nation at war with your own, cultists of an outlawed faith or political movement spies, magic warped monsters rampaging out from a rogue Sorcerer's laboratory.
TBPF, these changes should have come earlier, but hats off to WotC for doing it. I've been DMing for a six person party for nearly twenty years, and multiple tables of younger gamers for the past seven.
Multiple ethnic groups, religious beliefs and social backgrounds, and purely "white" campaigns aren't going to be as enthralling for them as a single ethnicity table. More diversity and less reliance on westernized and European tropes and story/plot hooks can only be better, for D&D, WotC and the game in general.
Tapping away at the dumbphone at work, so apologies for typos.
Honestly I don't see the fuss about changing the game to be more inclusive and less 'accidentally' racist.
Players don't have anything to fight? Are all Orcs bandits, and all Humans gainfully employed? Are all Halflings respectable merchants and all Goblins coin-obsessed bankers? (We're looking at you, Rowling...)
Point is, the game's settings are, unfortunately, set in an 80's mindset. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I loved the 80's, but things have changed, for the better, and to remain relevant, D&D has to change as well.
Need enemies? Agents of a rival nation at war with your own, cultists of an outlawed faith or political movement spies, magic warped monsters rampaging out from a rogue Sorcerer's laboratory.
TBPF, these changes should have come earlier, but hats off to WotC for doing it. I've been DMing for a six person party for nearly twenty years, and multiple tables of younger gamers for the past seven.
Multiple ethnic groups, religious beliefs and social backgrounds, and purely "white" campaigns aren't going to be as enthralling for them as a single ethnicity table. More diversity and less reliance on westernized and European tropes and story/plot hooks can only be better, for D&D, WotC and the game in general.
You do make a good point. And I think I wouldnt have been as frustrated with their decision, if they had announced this change as a 6th edition. If that makes any sense.
The tendency to simply label and dismiss others is as bad as it has ever been... even if the labels may have changed.
It actually seems worse now than I can ever remember.
Because people pay more attention to such issues now than they did twenty or thirty years ago. People are paying more attention to diversity, and more attention to the concerns of people who are something other than cis straight white men.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I've had it with straight white people crusading in my name.
I am not your pet project. Don't try to be my champion just to make yourself feel better.
From my side, it feels like people are telling me that I'm weak and need their pity.
If you want to help, start by closing your mouths and sitting back from your keyboards and listen to us. Don't talk about us like we're helpless. We obviously CAN speak for ourselves and be heard. Don't drown our voices with yours because you want to participate. If you do, it'll end up with the same result of people not hearing us, but it'll be your fault.
Think about that before you start replying with "how it must feel" for us. We can tell when such speech is not for our benefit.
So with that out of the way, let's hear your thoughts without assumptions about living our lives. K?
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.
Yeah, demons are harder to redeem than devils or maybe Yugoloths, but I don't think it has to do with souls. Angels aren't created out of souls, are they?
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Does redemption mean the character should have been demptioned once before? An entity that was created with Evil and has only known Evil as the only way, can that entity learn a new path? I like to think so, but such a journey will be a fantastic one of many trials and growth never seen more than once in an age.
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.
In Wildemount, orcs are born with an evil curse from Gruumsh that gives them near demonic rage. They're born into evil, only know evil, and can be redeemed in Wildemount.
I like to believe this is true for demons and devils as well.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I would like to say, as a BIPOC member of this community i never saw these races as direct references to Black< Indigionus and People of Color, but the extreme parallels between the real world and certain aspects of these different groups was super uncomfortable for me to read so i changed all of them right off the bat.
I saw a person on reddit point it out perfectly basically say; Fantasy writing heavily leans on simplifying alien or outcast races as being of a single culture (Think Klingon). And then any member of these races that 'defect' from the traditional depictions are automatically seen as superior.
This is just completely and utterly WRONG. Looking at just one race- the humans of earth- there is an immeasurable amount diversity, so much so that sometimes we as a species have a hard time coping with it.
Its not that we want all flavor and story to be watered down and boring, bigotry can be a very interesting topic to overcome when its not forced upon players who dont want to deal with these real world problems in their escapism. I simply want to see concrete options that allow diversification and options in my fantasy setting, without having to do every single little bit of work to fix it myself.
This ^ ^ ^. Every word of it.
D&D should be inclusive as a base ruleset, and if you want evil orcs in your campaign, you do the work to justify it. We shouldn't have to justify diversity and inclusivity in D&D.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Exactly. I think the part that everyone keeps overlooking is this is not specifically about color, its about ignorance. Saying that they are "based off a centuries old folktale" as justification to keep the abhorrent and racist descriptions of these people is wrong. Ancient peoples were also racist, especially the norse
I hate how relatable this is. (Also quoting because i feel too many people skimmed without actually reading the importance of this message
Been thinking about this, specifically in the context of the long descriptions in Volo's.
I think those descriptions are hugely useful and good sources of inspiration. They're very detailed with a lot of complex interrelationships. Great source material for a DM looking for some bad guys with some dimension to them.
But I don't think they need to be presented as blanket descriptions of whole races to serve that purpose.
One alternative might be to make them even more specific. Kind of like how Tales from the Yawning Portal gives you ideas and specific dungeons to insert into your campaign world, not a entire campaign world.
For example, instead of saying "this is how Orcs behave," perhaps it would be enough to say "Like all humanoids, orcs are very diverse. But this is how the Grok-Muk tribe of Orcs in the Forgotten Realms behave." They could even then be more specific and talk about named NPCs in that tribe and give DM's some ideas for how to run an orc BBEG. Then, you can drop part or all the Grok-Muk tribe into your campaign if they fit. And you can do it without turning the orc spice merchant strolling down the streets of Waterdeep checking his magical gold pocketwatch into some kind of bizarre outlier who needs a massive justification and backstory just to exist. (Though backstory benefits all NPCs, I tend to wait to find out which ones the players engage with before I go too far down that road.) Or, if you prefer, you can say, yup, sounds good, all orcs in my world act like the Grok-Muk tribe. Your call.
Another alternative, which I think I like a little bit less, would be to make those descriptions into race-independent "society" templates. So you pick a race and a society. Kind of like the board game Small World.
For example, maybe in your campaign Yeenoghu's passage corrupted dragon eggs instead of hyenas, creating kobolds that are now thoroughly evil and exist only to serve his desire to end all things. This seems harder to do and harder to use, though. You're going to have to do something to glue any particular combo together. (It may actually be more like what WOTC has in mind for PCs when they talk about "a way for a player to customize their character’s origin, including the option to change the ability score increases.")
Yes, you are right that D&D is about creativity, but what Wizards is trying to do right now is make it so you don’t have to work as hard when you do change it away from a world of simplistic monolithic cultures.
Here is something else I keep seeing from straight white people:
Taking one person's story and basing everything on that one person's story.
That's no different than the whole statements of "how it must feel" to be us.
It's still stereotyping, and we can tell that you just want to look good when you say such things. If you really want to help, listen without judgment. Stop making these assumptions about our lives. Repeating one of our individual stories and saying, "This is how it's like for them," shows you don't really know and shouldn't really be saying anything.
Don't speak for us. You can't. Don't try. Just listen.
If you want to speak, speak for yourself and only for yourself. Don't use us as some excuse just so you can speak.
Again, we're not your pet project.
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.
Wanna talk rising demons? Let's go over here. Yes?
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.
I realized today that I hadn’t responded to this. I’m so sorry this happens to you and to others. It’s wrong. Thank you for sharing your story and helping us to see the reality of what happens too often in our world.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk
Thank you for the reminder that speaking for others is itself a form of white privilege/supremacy. I went back and read my posts, to be sure I had not done so, and found one place where I did indeed imply that all people of color held the same views; I have edited that.
I will say that in my context (rural, almost exclusively white), if I don’t share the stories and experiences I hear from people of color, then most of the white folk around me will not hear those stories at all. But your comments here remind me that I need to be very careful when I do so, and that finding ways to bring those voices here directly is important.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk
My story is a oft-hidden story that is more common that one might want to believe.
I'm biracial and homosexual. Where am I getting the most bigotry?
From the Hispanic side.
Most of my Hispanic relatives hate white people based on a stereotype I very rarely experienced. They refuse to accept there are any other kinds of white people at all. They also hate homosexuals in general and merely tolerate those of us they know in the family. They act in the exact same manner that they claim others do but just from the opposite side.
The second most common source of bigotry is from people vocally espousing rights for "my" kind - basing everything on stereotypes and calling me weak. When I see someone going out of their way to make sure everyone in the world knows that they're an "ally", I get suspicious. The goal seems to be praise and not alliance.
My allies simply listen. I listen to them. We tell each other our stories. We break bread together. We find common ground. Then, we set aside everything and enjoy a moment of "sacred ground" where we focus on how we're the same and not what makes us different. We enjoy something together as just people. We become family beyond blood. Then, we hit up our representatives with our experiences. No bells. No whistles. Just getting the job done with no expectation of thanks or praise.
This problem isn't one-sided. Trying to spin the table 180 degrees isn't going to solve anything.
Hate is not the solution to hate. Apathy is not the solution to apathy. Racism is not the solution to racism. Singling people out is not the solution to those people being singled out.
We all work on ourselves or it doesn't work at all.
So, why don't I come forward with this more? I try to focus on what makes us the same to bring us closer together and not what makes me different from you. You can't connect with me over our differences, and a connection is where everything needs to begin. (EDIT: Also, it annoys me when someone takes my story and runs with it, making all kinds of justifications based on it. So, my story is mine. I keep it to my real allies.)
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.
Yes - I missed this earlier, and I think I did this too. I apologise. I’m not trying to speak on anyone’s behalf, and I’ll be more careful not to do so.
Tapping away at the dumbphone at work, so apologies for typos.
Honestly I don't see the fuss about changing the game to be more inclusive and less 'accidentally' racist.
Players don't have anything to fight? Are all Orcs bandits, and all Humans gainfully employed? Are all Halflings respectable merchants and all Goblins coin-obsessed bankers? (We're looking at you, Rowling...)
Point is, the game's settings are, unfortunately, set in an 80's mindset. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I loved the 80's, but things have changed, for the better, and to remain relevant, D&D has to change as well.
Need enemies? Agents of a rival nation at war with your own, cultists of an outlawed faith or political movement spies, magic warped monsters rampaging out from a rogue Sorcerer's laboratory.
TBPF, these changes should have come earlier, but hats off to WotC for doing it. I've been DMing for a six person party for nearly twenty years, and multiple tables of younger gamers for the past seven.
Multiple ethnic groups, religious beliefs and social backgrounds, and purely "white" campaigns aren't going to be as enthralling for them as a single ethnicity table. More diversity and less reliance on westernized and European tropes and story/plot hooks can only be better, for D&D, WotC and the game in general.
You do make a good point. And I think I wouldnt have been as frustrated with their decision, if they had announced this change as a 6th edition. If that makes any sense.
It actually seems worse now than I can ever remember.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Because people pay more attention to such issues now than they did twenty or thirty years ago. People are paying more attention to diversity, and more attention to the concerns of people who are something other than cis straight white men.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.