Dwarves and elves are different races. Orcs, Uruk-hai and goblins are also evil races. In fact, Lord of the Rings had evil humans. Saruman the WHITE being a prime example. Since, you know, you're so focused on colors being the be-all end-all of discussion rather than culture or deeds.
Generally agree, however, Saruman was not human. He was a lesser Elven deity spirit thing. He took on the form of a human wizard in order to interact with the mortal world, under strict orders to never reveal his true identity to mortals, except for Elves who are just simply aware of them. Gandalf, Radagast, and the 2 blue wizards were the same, and under the same orders.
And strictly speaking, Saruman was twisted to evil by the influence of Sauron through the Palantir. Even as he was attempting to conquer Rohan, it was with the intent to befriend and backstab Sauron in order to destroy him and the ring. His frame of reference had simply been corrupted to the point where the ends justified the means and anybody who died, no matter how many or who they were, were acceptable losses.
There is a lot of (hopefully unconscious) racism in Tolkien and other early fantasy writers. We just need to be aware of this and sensitive to its implications when we’re playing or running a game in 2020.
There is a lot of (hopefully unconscious) racism in Tolkien and other early fantasy writers. We just need to be aware of this and sensitive to its implications when we’re playing or running a game in 2020.
No we don’t. We can run whatever games we want and try to make it fun for the players.
I've personally never been fond of using the term Race to describe ethnicities. For me, humans are a race. African, asian, caucasian ... I look at those as broad ethnicities, not races. I mean, I guess you could use species to refer to different fantasy races, but how long until THAT becomes somehow offensive, right? Catering to the mob is dangerous as they always ask a mile, not an inch.
Now in terms of racial/species/ancestry/whatever traits and stats, I do believe D&D does fail a bit here. And it took me reading Pathfinder 2e to realize how to properly build a character of ANY class without needing to homogenize everything like D&D seems set to do. Simple: Give each race fixed ability score increases, but always leave one of them as open.
Case in point: Halflings get a boost to Dex, Wis, and one of your choosing. Goblins get Dex, Cha, and one of your choosing. The one of your choosing part is important as it opens up ANY race to ANY class. So Goblin fighters are a thing. Halfling wizards are a thing. Whereas in D&D, neither of those options are possible as both of them would be capped at 15 for their primary class stats. But still note that they still have two attribute boosts that are fixed. So that Goblin fighter, while being able to pick Str, will still have higher than average Dex and Cha.
I don't know if WOTC are planning something similar. If they are, good on them. But if they turn around and make *everything* malleable, including race specific traits and all attributes, that's going to be a big problem and will piss off soooooo many people, myself included.
Dwarves and elves are different races. Orcs, Uruk-hai and goblins are also evil races. In fact, Lord of the Rings had evil humans. Saruman the WHITE being a prime example. Since, you know, you're so focused on colors being the be-all end-all of discussion rather than culture or deeds.
Generally agree, however, Saruman was not human. He was a lesser Elven deity spirit thing. He took on the form of a human wizard in order to interact with the mortal world, under strict orders to never reveal his true identity to mortals, except for Elves who are just simply aware of them. Gandalf, Radagast, and the 2 blue wizards were the same, and under the same orders.
And strictly speaking, Saruman was twisted to evil by the influence of Sauron through the Palantir. Even as he was attempting to conquer Rohan, it was with the intent to befriend and backstab Sauron in order to destroy him and the ring. His frame of reference had simply been corrupted to the point where the ends justified the means and anybody who died, no matter how many or who they were, were acceptable losses.
"Some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual would believe them."
Dwarves and elves are different races. Orcs, Uruk-hai and goblins are also evil races. In fact, Lord of the Rings had evil humans. Saruman the WHITE being a prime example. Since, you know, you're so focused on colors being the be-all end-all of discussion rather than culture or deeds.
Uruk-hai are bred by Sarumon by breeding goblins and humans, and he urges a bunch of mountain folk that Rohan is responsible for all their problems and urges them to join him in raiding, invading and slaughtering their way through the countryside of Rohan.
Reread LotR. The evil men , the Easterlings and Haradrim, were dark-skinned. Saruman was the white wizard only until he was revealed to be evil. Then he became known as the wizard of "many colors" when Gandalf was given the mantle. The wild men of Dunland ended up being forgiven after the battle of Helm's Deep, and made diplomatic inroads with Aragorn upon his taking the throne. I don't recall a similar forgiveness being offered to the others.
This all kinda misses the point, however.
Race is entirely artificial as a concept in reality, and is a concept used to exclude more often than it provides any benefit. Encoding it as essentialist in a game is something that need not be done. Look at the newest DMs Guild offerings that allow the current race rules to be divided into ancestry and culture. Those rules are elegant, and allow for a broader range of character options. Isn't that something we can appreciate? Link and link.
No one is blaming victims for having poor circumstances. People blame individuals for making poor choices. If I have problems it’s not societies job to fix them for me. It’s my job. It may require moving to another city or state, it may require drastic attitude adjustment and therapy, it may require working.
Any choice I make in life must be weighed in how much it helps or hinders me. Will it open doors of opportunity or make me look and sound bad and make people not want to associate with me.
The world doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t care about me, and it doesn’t care about groups. We all have individual responsibilities to ourselves and trying to force that responsibility on others because people feel like victims only alienates them from people who otherwise may have been willing to give them a chance.
Also, it’s illegal to pay anyone less for doing the same job based on race or gender. What changes is education (can be done by individuals), work experience (can be done by individuals), networking and connections and finally negotiation.
People are, more often than not, victims only in their own heads. It’s become lucrative to be a victim in society because you can blame everyone else for your problems without putting in the work to succeed and nothing is ever your fault.
My advice for anyone is focus on improving yourself. Work hard and don’t do anything that’ll make you look bad. Drop friends who bring you down. Study, get a job, move to a place with more opportunities if you have to, save money and spend less than you make. Avoid debt and find a hobby that you enjoy and can have fun doing with as many or few people as you like.
Life is not easy for anyone and no one cares if people complain about how hard they got it.
I think I'd be better off just ignoring your posts from here on in. My previous post addresses every point you've tried to make here with peer-reviewed research on high-quality data.
All of the "good choices" you've suggested, pursuing higher education, finding gainful employment, moving to another city, buying a house, having a stable family... ALL of them are dependent on having resources. The cost of higher education has been skyrocketing in the U.S. substantially faster than CPI inflation for three decades now. How do you finance this without wealth? Answer: you borrow a LOT. How are you going to pay it back if you're excluded from high-paying jobs by the "sound" of your name? How are you going to buy a house if you're already buried in debt? How are you going to move to a city with employment prospects if you don't have the resources to pay for the move and the local costs of living? How are you going to form connections if you couldn't afford the low-paying internship to which upper-class white families send their kids? Or if you couldn't afford to attend an elite private school? If you didn't grow up in a neighborhood with wealthy neighbors?
You then have the nerve to say that people should avoid debt, when incurring those debts is literally the only way to finance these "choices"? Your posts reek of obliviousness to your own privilege.
I don't get what the problem is with the term 'Race'. (IMO) I don't like the term 'Species'.
Truth is - there actually isn't a huge problem with the term 'race' at all.
People have raised valid issues concerning biological determinism, evil races playing into historical racist stereotypes, etc. However, those are complicated and nuanced issues that can take a fair amount of research and effort to fully understand and address.
It's easier for people to argue over a single word instead, and definitely easier for "journalists" writing articles about this (and people arguing in bad faith) to skip that research and oversimplify it into a debate over a single word. *shrug*
(Trying to think of a good analogy - imagine a business polluting a water supply and the residents raise the issue of it being unsanitary - there's rampant bacteria, it makes people sick, tastes awful, stains laundry, etc. So the business puts in an additive so that it tastes better. I mean, sure, that's technically "progress" but really misses the larger point - especially if people start arguing over whether it should have a fruity or minty flavor.) ;)
I don't get what the problem is with the term 'Race'. (IMO) I don't like the term 'Species'.
Truth is - there actually isn't a huge problem with the term 'race' at all.
People have raised valid issues concerning biological determinism, evil races playing into historical racist stereotypes, etc. However, those are complicated and nuanced issues that can take a fair amount of research and effort to fully understand and address.
It's easier for people to argue over a single word instead, and definitely easier for "journalists" writing articles about this (and people arguing in bad faith) to skip that research and oversimplify it into a debate over a single word. *shrug*
(Trying to think of a good analogy - imagine a business polluting a water supply and the residents raise the issue of it being unsanitary - there's rampant bacteria, it makes people sick, tastes awful, stains laundry, etc. So the business puts in an additive so that it tastes better. I mean, sure, that's technically "progress" but really misses the larger point - especially if people start arguing over whether it should have a fruity or minty flavor.) ;)
Not exactly. It's not that people want WotC to do away with race alone without fixing the essentialist aspects of the system, ie. racial bonuses and penalties, racial presumptions of alignment, etc. That won't change with a rebranding.
I don't get what the problem is with the term 'Race'. (IMO) I don't like the term 'Species'.
Truth is - there actually isn't a huge problem with the term 'race' at all.
People have raised valid issues concerning biological determinism, evil races playing into historical racist stereotypes, etc. However, those are complicated and nuanced issues that can take a fair amount of research and effort to fully understand and address.
It's easier for people to argue over a single word instead, and definitely easier for "journalists" writing articles about this (and people arguing in bad faith) to skip that research and oversimplify it into a debate over a single word. *shrug*
(Trying to think of a good analogy - imagine a business polluting a water supply and the residents raise the issue of it being unsanitary - there's rampant bacteria, it makes people sick, tastes awful, stains laundry, etc. So the business puts in an additive so that it tastes better. I mean, sure, that's technically "progress" but really misses the larger point - especially if people start arguing over whether it should have a fruity or minty flavor.) ;)
Not exactly. It's not that people want WotC to do away with race alone without fixing the essentialist aspects of the system, ie. racial bonuses and penalties, racial presumptions of alignment, etc. That won't change with a rebranding.
Maybe I didn't word it well, sorry. But I 100% agree with you. I was mainly focused on responding to that one comment because I see a lot of discussion in places (here and elsewhere) gets caught up on 'race' vs 'species' vs 'ancestry' vs 'origins' etc. treating it like that is the heart of the problem - which I agree with you that it isn't. That is a mischaracterization at best and deliberate deflection at worst.
I mean, I definitely have an opinion on fruity-flavored polluted water over minty-flavored (to use my hastily thought up analogy because it was REALLY hard not to bring up real world political examples like removing an old episode of Golden Girls no one was complaining about), and I'm sure people could have very impassioned arguments over fruity-flavored polluted water vs minty-flavored, but, like you said, that is just rebranding and not addressing the real problems.
The fault here lies with having a "Default" campaign setting at all. All the rules should be setting neutral with the lore presented in setting books.
Yeah I’m a new player to D&D and I find that a bit weird that WOTC is pushing one setting primarily onto all players. Like yes I like the forgotten realms and I am currently running a campaign in it due to me still writing up my homebrew world but still I find that weird.
Maybe I didn't word it well, sorry. But I 100% agree with you. I was mainly focused on responding to that one comment because I see a lot of discussion in places (here and elsewhere) gets caught up on 'race' vs 'species' vs 'ancestry' vs 'origins' etc. treating it like that is the heart of the problem - which I agree with you that it isn't. That is a mischaracterization at best and deliberate deflection at worst.
I mean, I definitely have an opinion on fruity-flavored polluted water over minty-flavored (to use my hastily thought up analogy because it was REALLY hard not to bring up real world political examples like removing an old episode of Golden Girls no one was complaining about), and I'm sure people could have very impassioned arguments over fruity-flavored polluted water vs minty-flavored, but, like you said, that is just rebranding and not addressing the real problems.
Yeah I’m a new player to D&D and I find that a bit weird that WOTC is pushing one setting primarily onto all players. Like yes I like the forgotten realms and I am currently running a campaign in it due to me still writing up my homebrew world but still I find that weird.
It is interesting. I wonder what the distribution of settings looks like. I'd bet most are homebrewed. I wonder if CR's Exandria is gaining serious ground against FR.
"Thus, his original intent was not allegorical in nature—it did not precede the story. Yet a story from which allegory then emanates remains an allegory, if not of a different type."
"Thus, his original intent was not allegorical in nature—it did not precede the story. Yet a story from which allegory then emanates remains an allegory, if not of a different type."
It only becomes an allegory if people force an allegory into a place where there was none.
Until someone can settle all of this, I'm just going to use "origin".
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.
The way this topic has gone reminded me of a comedy skit that came out five years ago. Unfortunately some people have become so sensitive that it would not surprise me if people get this far in how they try to avoid offending anyone.
Generally agree, however, Saruman was not human. He was a lesser Elven deity spirit thing. He took on the form of a human wizard in order to interact with the mortal world, under strict orders to never reveal his true identity to mortals, except for Elves who are just simply aware of them. Gandalf, Radagast, and the 2 blue wizards were the same, and under the same orders.
And strictly speaking, Saruman was twisted to evil by the influence of Sauron through the Palantir. Even as he was attempting to conquer Rohan, it was with the intent to befriend and backstab Sauron in order to destroy him and the ring. His frame of reference had simply been corrupted to the point where the ends justified the means and anybody who died, no matter how many or who they were, were acceptable losses.
There is a lot of (hopefully unconscious) racism in Tolkien and other early fantasy writers. We just need to be aware of this and sensitive to its implications when we’re playing or running a game in 2020.
No we don’t. We can run whatever games we want and try to make it fun for the players.
Orcs are not symbolic of Asians and if they were in an Asian setting then you would have Asians versus Orcs.
I can see it now, Total War: Three Kingdoms. Cao Cao, Lu Bei and Sun Jien vs an invading force of orcs!
We should bring in the ents to agree that Asians are not orcs. lol
I've personally never been fond of using the term Race to describe ethnicities. For me, humans are a race. African, asian, caucasian ... I look at those as broad ethnicities, not races. I mean, I guess you could use species to refer to different fantasy races, but how long until THAT becomes somehow offensive, right? Catering to the mob is dangerous as they always ask a mile, not an inch.
Now in terms of racial/species/ancestry/whatever traits and stats, I do believe D&D does fail a bit here. And it took me reading Pathfinder 2e to realize how to properly build a character of ANY class without needing to homogenize everything like D&D seems set to do. Simple: Give each race fixed ability score increases, but always leave one of them as open.
Case in point: Halflings get a boost to Dex, Wis, and one of your choosing. Goblins get Dex, Cha, and one of your choosing. The one of your choosing part is important as it opens up ANY race to ANY class. So Goblin fighters are a thing. Halfling wizards are a thing. Whereas in D&D, neither of those options are possible as both of them would be capped at 15 for their primary class stats. But still note that they still have two attribute boosts that are fixed. So that Goblin fighter, while being able to pick Str, will still have higher than average Dex and Cha.
I don't know if WOTC are planning something similar. If they are, good on them. But if they turn around and make *everything* malleable, including race specific traits and all attributes, that's going to be a big problem and will piss off soooooo many people, myself included.
True, true.
Reread LotR. The evil men , the Easterlings and Haradrim, were dark-skinned. Saruman was the white wizard only until he was revealed to be evil. Then he became known as the wizard of "many colors" when Gandalf was given the mantle. The wild men of Dunland ended up being forgiven after the battle of Helm's Deep, and made diplomatic inroads with Aragorn upon his taking the throne. I don't recall a similar forgiveness being offered to the others.
This all kinda misses the point, however.
Race is entirely artificial as a concept in reality, and is a concept used to exclude more often than it provides any benefit. Encoding it as essentialist in a game is something that need not be done. Look at the newest DMs Guild offerings that allow the current race rules to be divided into ancestry and culture. Those rules are elegant, and allow for a broader range of character options. Isn't that something we can appreciate? Link and link.
I think I'd be better off just ignoring your posts from here on in. My previous post addresses every point you've tried to make here with peer-reviewed research on high-quality data.
All of the "good choices" you've suggested, pursuing higher education, finding gainful employment, moving to another city, buying a house, having a stable family... ALL of them are dependent on having resources. The cost of higher education has been skyrocketing in the U.S. substantially faster than CPI inflation for three decades now. How do you finance this without wealth? Answer: you borrow a LOT. How are you going to pay it back if you're excluded from high-paying jobs by the "sound" of your name? How are you going to buy a house if you're already buried in debt? How are you going to move to a city with employment prospects if you don't have the resources to pay for the move and the local costs of living? How are you going to form connections if you couldn't afford the low-paying internship to which upper-class white families send their kids? Or if you couldn't afford to attend an elite private school? If you didn't grow up in a neighborhood with wealthy neighbors?
You then have the nerve to say that people should avoid debt, when incurring those debts is literally the only way to finance these "choices"? Your posts reek of obliviousness to your own privilege.
Truth is - there actually isn't a huge problem with the term 'race' at all.
People have raised valid issues concerning biological determinism, evil races playing into historical racist stereotypes, etc. However, those are complicated and nuanced issues that can take a fair amount of research and effort to fully understand and address.
It's easier for people to argue over a single word instead, and definitely easier for "journalists" writing articles about this (and people arguing in bad faith) to skip that research and oversimplify it into a debate over a single word. *shrug*
(Trying to think of a good analogy - imagine a business polluting a water supply and the residents raise the issue of it being unsanitary - there's rampant bacteria, it makes people sick, tastes awful, stains laundry, etc. So the business puts in an additive so that it tastes better. I mean, sure, that's technically "progress" but really misses the larger point - especially if people start arguing over whether it should have a fruity or minty flavor.) ;)
Not exactly. It's not that people want WotC to do away with race alone without fixing the essentialist aspects of the system, ie. racial bonuses and penalties, racial presumptions of alignment, etc. That won't change with a rebranding.
Maybe I didn't word it well, sorry. But I 100% agree with you. I was mainly focused on responding to that one comment because I see a lot of discussion in places (here and elsewhere) gets caught up on 'race' vs 'species' vs 'ancestry' vs 'origins' etc. treating it like that is the heart of the problem - which I agree with you that it isn't. That is a mischaracterization at best and deliberate deflection at worst.
I mean, I definitely have an opinion on fruity-flavored polluted water over minty-flavored (to use my hastily thought up analogy because it was REALLY hard not to bring up real world political examples like removing an old episode of Golden Girls no one was complaining about), and I'm sure people could have very impassioned arguments over fruity-flavored polluted water vs minty-flavored, but, like you said, that is just rebranding and not addressing the real problems.
Yeah I’m a new player to D&D and I find that a bit weird that WOTC is pushing one setting primarily onto all players. Like yes I like the forgotten realms and I am currently running a campaign in it due to me still writing up my homebrew world but still I find that weird.
Ah, okay. My mistake!
It is interesting. I wonder what the distribution of settings looks like. I'd bet most are homebrewed. I wonder if CR's Exandria is gaining serious ground against FR.
I do. And Tolkien was very clear that his works should not be considered allegories.
From: https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2014/11/22/94865-majesty-and-simplicity-on-tolkien-and-allegory/
"Thus, his original intent was not allegorical in nature—it did not precede the story. Yet a story from which allegory then emanates remains an allegory, if not of a different type."
I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.
It only becomes an allegory if people force an allegory into a place where there was none.
Until someone can settle all of this, I'm just going to use "origin".
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.
What’s Arda?
https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Arda
Thanks 😊.
Now I remember. I read the Silmarillion as a kid. I forgot they called it Arda instead of Middle-Earth back then.
The way this topic has gone reminded me of a comedy skit that came out five years ago. Unfortunately some people have become so sensitive that it would not surprise me if people get this far in how they try to avoid offending anyone.
https://youtu.be/tQByeGkJJSc