A lot of people who write for D&D 5e also, sadly, appear to not understand demographics and migration patterns. They also don't appear to understand human adaptation and evolution on the small scale. That's the price you pay for hiring people who don't know History or Evolutionary Biology, but were Gender Studies majors in college.
Oh do tell me how the history of migration patterns of humankind on Earth dictates the migration patterns, population distribution, and cultural structures of humanity among other sentient humanoid species in fantasy worldsfrequently subject to interventions by magic and extraplanar or divine entities. I mean you're addressing a question about _Genasi_ and you're invoking evolutionary biology to lodge a critique against some aspect of 5e that has you sore?
Before you indulge the forum with a lengthy recap of the injuries the management of the D&D brand has done you over the decades, in this instance your grievance apparently having to do with whatever subjects you speculate they pursued in the course of their education, allow me to point out the comment I am making should be regarded as a rhetorical question.
A lot of people who write for D&D 5e also, sadly, appear to not understand demographics and migration patterns. They also don't appear to understand human adaptation and evolution on the small scale. That's the price you pay for hiring people who don't know History or Evolutionary Biology, but were Gender Studies majors in college.
Oh do tell me how the history of migration patterns of humankind on Earth dictates the migration patterns, population distribution, and cultural structures of humanity among other sentient humanoid species in fantasy worldsfrequently subject to interventions by magic and extraplanar or divine entities. I mean you're addressing a question about _Genasi_ and you're invoking evolutionary biology to lodge a critique against some aspect of 5e that has you sore?
Before you indulge the forum with a lengthy recap of the injuries the management of the D&D brand has done you over the decades, in this instance your grievance apparently having to do with whatever subjects you speculate they pursued in the course of their education, allow me to point out the comment I am making should be regarded as a rhetorical question.
I think that bold text is particularly constructive, or at least corrective, in this context. To break it down for you, again, the post you were replying to was simply asking if it was conceivable that a fire Genasi could be on the receiving end of discrimiation/prejudice because of its fire traits. I imagine, given past monologues, you're old enough to know Firestarter from the Stephen King mythos or any of the pyrokinetic mutants in Marvel X-franchises to know the answer there is an easy "yes." So you say yeah, and do a decent job of giving some context as to how, drawing off the same tropes King drew off of in Firestarter. But then you go weird and throw shade at the design team, taking issue with what you speculate they studied in college and compare it to academic disciplines that would have very very little to contribute in helping a creative mind work out what sort of societal dangers a fire Genasi may be in for in a game world. I'm sorry you consider it trolling, but I'd argue the only real trolling was the shade toss at a design team to answer a simple "yeah/nah" question. EDITED since Trolling allegation has been deleted.
Oh do tell me how the history of migration patterns of humankind on Earth dictates the migration patterns, population distribution, and cultural structures of humanity among other sentient humanoid species in fantasy worldsfrequently subject to interventions by magic and extraplanar or divine entities. I mean you're addressing a question about _Genasi_ and you're invoking evolutionary biology to lodge a critique against some aspect of 5e that has you sore?
Well, Just one example that bugs me: I mostly play Eberron, and in Eberron humans come from Sarlona, and elves come from Xendrik. Both species left their origin biomes like 5 minutes ago evolutionary speaking. Elves left theirs like 38 000 years before humans left Sarlona, but with long lifespans elves evolve proportionally slower. Both mix up a lot and travel around freely, witch shuld have genetically homogenized them millenias ago. Realistically both humans and elves should be mono-races, as both species didn't have time to develop differing skin color and other mutations. Yet both races somehow have American-style mixing of different skin colors. It's even worse of Dwarves who lived in one place since before we have records and still somehow have different skin colors. All to appease fragile American sensibilities.
Races in D&D were created in their modern forms by gods or other powerful supernatural beings. They did not evolve naturally. They did not have to develop language, use of fire, domestication of animals and plants, or the ability to craft tools out of materials found in the environment- they were all created able to do those things. Stop trying to use some half-remembered, misrepresented versions of high school biology in arguments about D&D. Racial diversity is not something new in D&D. Dragonlance had two races of dwarves, three or more races of elves, and humans of every skin color living on a continent smaller than Australia.
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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.
Dragonlance had two races of dwarves, three or more races of elves, and humans of every skin color living on a continent smaller than Australia.
And it was believable because then kept to themselves and barely ever crossbred witn Krinn being in Medieval Stasis and having appropriate medieval low mobility of population and xenophobia cranked to the max. Mountain dwarves and hill dwarves have ancient grudges separating them, dozen kinds of elves keep apart and humans see anyone who don't look like them as potential danger. Now Eberron lives in the prolonged New Age with highly mobile population, black white and yellow humans, elves and dwarves live side by side and frequently make babies with each other, and while xenophobia is still there and thriving it's mostly focused on nationalism instead of racism, so people don't really self-segreagate. By all means humans should have homogenized into a single race somewhere by 400-600 y.k. just like Earth humans are predicted to homogenize into a single race by 23-25-th century if current trends of mixing continue.
I think you're mistaking the course theorized by evolutionary biology = something like monochromatic genetic expression. It doesn't theorize that. Take skin color. Sure in the trajectory theorized what constitutes a "medium" tone will be recentered, but a spectrum will still exist, just some traits will be a lot less common in certain geographies than they are now. So I don't see why you see Eberron objectionable. I mean, I don't know the game world all too well, but what edition are you presented the DNA sequence distribution manifested in the arriving population or more lay genealogy? To play out the way you claim it has to be reflective of Earth's distributions, and that's really not evident and so goes to my earlier point that using Earth migration and news magazine understandings of evolutionary biology to rail against representation in fantasy worlds is just silly.
Besides Eberron is one instance of world design and has been a lot more Keith Baker driven that WotC driven (and evidently more in his control these days) so this doesn't seem to work insofar as supporting the broadside Brooklyn launched against 5e design sensibilities across the board.
Your chauvinism against what you see as American fragility or whatever is noted, or at least recognized as an expression you tend to perform, but it doesn't outweigh the fact that the game's an American brand and more centered in an American market, so likely will be designed to maximize its impact there. I really don't think the moves the game has taken in terms of what's basically art direction is hurting the game at all. Whatever chafe you and Brooklyn feel against how people are presented in the books seems to be good for business, or at least not hurting it.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Sure in the trajectory theorized what constitutes a "medium" tone will be recentered.
There's currently no "medium" to be recentered. The whole point of homogenization is that you end up with one global population instead of whole lot of local ones that don't mix up with each others and keep their differences. Which we still have on the majority of Earh, save Americas.
Eberron, particuarly Khorvaire and Aerenal were settlled by descendants of a relatively small group of colonists who intermingled a lot. There's no genetic differences between Kharnati and Brelish humans or between Aereni and Tairnadal elves, as they all came from the same stock - only cultural ones. I'd be perfectly fine with Humans of Sarlona or Drow of Xendrik to come in all different shades and forms, but Khorvaire humans and Aerenal Elves by all logic should all mono-race.
Moreso, Orks, that do have separate populations that don't mix with each other, somehow don't have racial differences in Eberron and Marcher orks would look roughly the same as Ghaskala or Carrion Tribes if you remove the tatoos, even though they of all species on Khorvaire should have them the most. Guess different shades of green don't sell as well as different shades of brown.
Alter the written words to suit your criteria. DM Chapter 8 includes examples of incorporating different lore. DMG Chapter 9 includes examples of changing mechanics.
We shouldn't really need to try to justify or invalidate ours or others' worlds.
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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 really don't think the moves the game has taken in terms of what's basically art direction is hurting the game at all.
Not in selling the game, but it did hurt internal consistency of the lore. It's just that very few of the players care about it.
Some players just want a good time playing a fun character who represents them. I introduced most of my players to D&D about a year ago. They have no connection to the lore, and neither do I. We just want to play a fun game. One of the players wanted her character to be dark-skinned like she was. She just wants to be represented, so why should the lore stop her?
Sometimes it can be hard to see why other people are so bothered about things like representation. I know a nice guy who has the annoying habit of assuming every basic NPC (guard, goblin, bandit, etc) I introduce is male. Once someone even mentioned a character called Eliana (a female name) in passing and he used male pronouns to discuss her. I am a woman, and I play with a mostly female players. I like to have half of the characters be female and half be male, but this guy, who is a friend I like, never thinks about that sort of thing. It is not because he is malicious or sexist; he never has to think about things like representation because he is a white guy who sees himself in just about everything.
And as a final comment, the game has many unrealistic elements. One that bothers me personally is darkvision. The way an eye works is that rays enter a lens and converge to form an image. No one should be able to see in a lightless environment. I am sure every player has one rule, piece of lore, spell, etc that bothers them in some way because of how unrealistic it is. You can always adjust things specially for your group, or accept that some people like it that way.
To conclude, people like to be part of their fantasy worlds. It can be hard to see from their perspectives at times, and yes, the lore is not as consistent, but is it not worth it to have people feel welcomed? It is just a fantasy game.
In the game where you can play anything some people just have to play themselves. That level of vanity and lack of creativity never ceases to amaze me.
I like to have half of the characters be female and half be male
In a story about people killing monsters and other peple? Yeah, I get why the other guy thinks it's weird when IRL like 98% of people in killing and dying business are male.
In the game where you can play anything some people just have to play themselves. That level of vanity and lack of creativity never ceases to amaze me.
Being represented by your character is neither a sign of vanity nor of a lack of creativity. People that like people that represent themselves in some capacity are an entirely different matter than people who always play a Gary/Mary Sue version of themselves. I have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) so it is much easier for me to play a race/character that has difficulties expressing/understanding emotions than one that can easily do this. This is why I like playing Lizardfolk, Dragonborn, Warforged, and Gnomes. That doesn't make me vain or uncreative, it makes me human. Everyone plays characters that they can understand and relate to, including you.
BS. Absolute BS. If a dark-skinned person wants to play a dark-skinned race because they can relate to them, the lore of the world making Drow be evil Lolth worshippers is less important than player agency. Lore is there to enhance the game, and it doesn't enhance it when it takes away the fun from another character.
Sometimes it can be hard to see why other people are so bothered about things like representation.
Because 9 times out f 10 it is forced, lazy and breaks immersion. It could be done well but rarely is.
Respectful representation is good representation. Any amount of inclusion is going to be forced, because you have to think about adding diversity to a hobby that is infamous for its lack in diversity. As long as it's not "look at our minorities, we're totally not bigoted" or "here are our stereotypical minorities that are punch-lines", any amount of representation is better than no representation, even if it's "forced".
I'd also be a bit more careful in your wording in the future. It currently very much comes off as the people who complained that MCU's Nick Fury is black, basically saying "but I don't want minorities in this!" That is likely not what you're going for, but is what is coming across to me and probably a few others.
I like to have half of the characters be female and half be male
In a story about people killing monsters and other peple? Yeah, I get why the other guy thinks it's weird when IRL like 98% of people in killing and dying business are male.
Now this is complete nonsense and bigoted. This is advocating for 98% of PCs being male. Stop. Just stop. This is highly offensive and short-sighted. Anyone can play anything they want. It's not up to you to decide who plays what, especially at anyone else's table.
If you actually bothered to read some books containing the lore you would know it's not actually dark vision but heat vision that most DnD races have.
A prerequisite for playing D&D games is not reading the Drizzt novels or Ed Greenwood's FR books. Stop gatekeeping. 5e says "darkvision", not "infravision". Stop offending others based on what D&D books they've read/not read.
I can understand the appeal of a world filled with those who understand what it's like to be the player. It's not my thing, but I get it.
My escapism thing is a world filled as it would be expected with the singular tweak what what I am IRL simply doesn't matter in-game (which is unlike IRL at this time). It's such a small tweak in my opinion, but I can also see how people might see it as setting-breaking. I can't change that and I wouldn't try. This is about having fun and my fun doesn't override someone else's any more than someone else's overrides mine. We're playing this game cooperatively. We can't always have everything just for ourselves, and that's okay.
There are limits to what people can accept, too. If that's a problem, the best solution I can imagine is going separate ways - finding a table that's okay with one's criteria. I feel very confident to type that there will always be a table out there for you somewhere.
There's plenty of room for further creativity to envelope around players' escapisms and boundaries.
D&D is trying to promote inclusivity. I see no harm in that. It's modern marketing and it will happen - it's inevitable. It's also not dictating what players do. Everything I see Hasbro/WotC doing with D&D is presenting more options. What people do with those options is on the people. We're the ones in control outside their offices.
I can see from this thread that there are varying criteria for what people want with realism and fantasy - different things need to be realistic and different things are allowed to be fantasy to different people. That's not necessarily wrong.
What I do find wrong is insisting people must play a specific way in a specific story. The reasons people play D&D are different and that will affect how they play. There's nothing wrong with that.
Find those who mesh with your intents with D&D and let others do the same. I'm very certain that the tables you seek are out there.
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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.
Let's keep things respectful, appropriate and courteous, okay folx? Let's not bring in real world topics, theories, or principles into a discussion of a fantasy setting, that only leads to arguments (as well as breaking forum rules on inappropriate content)
IMO if discrimination against a race is in a game, it should not be just because they are that race. There should be some reason (Like a recent war for example) that they would be mistrusted. The big problem in DnD is that the PHB, MM and DMG should just be the rules. Unfortunately they have leaned so much into the forgotten realms this edition that they even put lore in those books. Discrimination in LORE is ok as long as it is suitably justified (As mentioned above) but discrimination in the RULES should not exist.
I also think that people see the devs actions and immediately associate them with racism. Take drow for an example: Drow are usually portrayed as having dark skin. A lot of people took offence at that (I am not saying it was without reason, just that it was not the intention to be offensive). When wizards tried to fix it, by putting pale drow in Tasha's, everyone jumped down their throats. In the lore, they are a range of colours, and both pale and dark skinned drow make sense. They could be light skinned because they are always underground and they have no need for melanin in their skin and they could be darker coloured as it would help them blend in better in their environment. Both of these facts make sense, especially from an evolutionary standpoint.
I think the main mistake that people make is over associating things with other things. Some things are a legitimate problem, like drow being 'evil' in the rules and always being portrayed with black skin, and should be changed but even those are unintentional slights.
IMO DnD and other TTRPGs are the most inclusive games there are, because you literally design them yourself.
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“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
In my campaign, which is on pause, where I DM, racism is widespread and not frowned upon when it comes to "exotics", basically anyone non-human. But it's mainly concentrated in areas where one race dominates, as there are other places where another race dominates, and they'll be racist to anyone not like them. I think this is natural for such a setting, and a mirror of our world without globalization.
let me rephrase to make better sense TLDR: If your running a campaign that doesn't like Tieflings, Cause there half devils and aren't accepted in the city. And orcs are not accepted because they raid, And make half orc babies with a dungeon master who likes to chain people up and throw them in pit of doom. Then its generally seen as acceptable by mainstream dnd community. But if you make a homebrew rule that a team master replaces the dungeon master and gets people to work together instead of chain them up etc, Then likely you wont-- have to worry about racism because you will be playing the game by yourself.
I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say here.
how to handle the problem of racism in a dnd campaign. and also a lot more issues than that in a realistic world
I hate the idea that, in order to be realistic, a world has to feature racism. We can accept dragons, spellcasters, magic swords and talking rats, werebear and angry slime, but racism is where we draw the line ? Really ?
If i usually don't put racism into my setting, it's not because I want to be "pc", it's because I think it makes for a better game, and more enjoyment. I also don't put homophobia, sexism, or sexual assault. For some reasons, I don't find these topics to be productive towards the idea of fun. Go figure.
These are subjects that may be sore for several people, and that may make your table uninvinting. And if you were to take them on, you would definitely require a certain finesse.
I could ask then.
Is there no evil in your campaigns? What are your players fighting against?
I could ask, is murder more socially acceptable than racism, sexual assault and general abuse? What I'm asking, do you portray evil in your campaign, and if yes, then how do you go about it?
Being represented by your character is neither a sign of vanity nor of a lack of creativity.
Then what is? It's called "Role Playing Game" because you play the role, not the alternative universe version of yourself. Nothing stops you from doing the latter, but it's missing half the fun of DnD in playing people who are extremely different from what you are and exploring their characters.
Did you read my post? I'm not even going to bother. If you can't see a difference between wanting to play a character you can relate to and playing a Mary/Gary Sue-ified carbon-copy of yourself, there's really no point in having this discussion. I absolutely cannot believe that you never play characters that you so much as can understand on a personal level.
I told you in the previous post what this means. It means we're human. We can roleplay things that we can relate to. We can't properly roleplay things we can't relate to in any way.
If reality offends you, it's your problem, not mine. DnD words are set in Medieval to New Age societies, not Information Age, and it would be weird for them to have modern gender equality or culture of tolerance for no reason. End even in or modern society we don't have 50/50 gender equity despite equal rights, because surprise-surprise men and women are different on biological level and tend to pick different paths in life if given freedom to do so.
It is not reality that offends me, it is your insistence that 98% of PCs have to be male. D&D takes place in a fantasy world. Drow have a matriarchal society. Waterdeep and Silverymoon are more modern than most other cities in the world. Eberron is practically modern. If you can't understand why saying that 98% of player characters of a diverse slew of biologically different races have to be male is both offensive and delusional (as this is a freaking fantasy game where biology is different from humans to orcs, aarakocra, and grung, where not all PCs are brutish mercenaries), I don't know what to tell you.
Any amount of inclusion is going to be forced, because you have to think about adding diversity to a hobby that is infamous for its lack in diversity.
Just because it's hard to do it properly does not mean it's impossible. But it's easier to say so and don't try and put any real effort into worldbuilding because "it's always going to be forced".
I have absolutely no idea what the hell this is trying to say, and I'm not going to try to understand it. Respectful representation is good representation, even if it's "forced". If you think inclusion is bad, I suggest you play an earlier edition (which you likely already own), as it may be better suited for you than the changing player-scape of 5e.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Lots of inane potshots being taken back and forth and only a few have actually voiced what I believe in regarding "racism" in D&D.
I put it in quotes, due to the context I believe it SHOULD exist in. Orcs, as an example, being generally hated and at best distrusted throughout a region where they are notorious raiders. Drow, in areas where they have perhaps perpetrated surface raids, or, pretty much everywhere if it is a Forgotten Realms setting, due to.....well, them being evil and all. People being wary of Teiflings, some places not liking Dwarves, or Elves. All things that make sense, in a world where there is no interwebs and equality movements.
Homebrew settings are the same thing, IMO. For immersion, there should be a sense of realism and we are accustomed to some form of racism, no matter if it's wrong, we KNOW it has (and sadly still does) exist. Imposing this to the game world helps the players relate better to the world and offers tons of options to enhance the plotlines. The players join in to stop the "evil orcs!!" For a more modern spin, to jump on the "movement" bandwagons, the players strive to show the locals that most of the Orc tribes are NOT raiders and pillagers, but hunters and gatherers, to bridge the gap and make a change.
Being afraid to tackle a sensitive issue head on, in a pure fantasy setting is toxic to games of the imagination. It stifles creativity, for fear of stepping on toes, when in reality, racism in these fantasy settings is NOTHING more than a bunch of "imagine if....." statements. Anyone taking it too seriously needs to step off and get back in touch with reality, where such things DO matter.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
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That's exactly what i meant! Glad that you understand my opinion.
Oh do tell me how the history of migration patterns of humankind on Earth dictates the migration patterns, population distribution, and cultural structures of humanity among other sentient humanoid species in fantasy worlds frequently subject to interventions by magic and extraplanar or divine entities. I mean you're addressing a question about _Genasi_ and you're invoking evolutionary biology to lodge a critique against some aspect of 5e that has you sore?
Before you indulge the forum with a lengthy recap of the injuries the management of the D&D brand has done you over the decades, in this instance your grievance apparently having to do with whatever subjects you speculate they pursued in the course of their education, allow me to point out the comment I am making should be regarded as a rhetorical question.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I think that bold text is particularly constructive, or at least corrective, in this context. To break it down for you, again, the post you were replying to was simply asking if it was conceivable that a fire Genasi could be on the receiving end of discrimiation/prejudice because of its fire traits. I imagine, given past monologues, you're old enough to know Firestarter from the Stephen King mythos or any of the pyrokinetic mutants in Marvel X-franchises to know the answer there is an easy "yes." So you say yeah, and do a decent job of giving some context as to how, drawing off the same tropes King drew off of in Firestarter. But then you go weird and throw shade at the design team, taking issue with what you speculate they studied in college and compare it to academic disciplines that would have very very little to contribute in helping a creative mind work out what sort of societal dangers a fire Genasi may be in for in a game world.
I'm sorry you consider it trolling, but I'd argue the only real trolling was the shade toss at a design team to answer a simple "yeah/nah" question.EDITED since Trolling allegation has been deleted.Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Well, Just one example that bugs me:
I mostly play Eberron, and in Eberron humans come from Sarlona, and elves come from Xendrik. Both species left their origin biomes like 5 minutes ago evolutionary speaking. Elves left theirs like 38 000 years before humans left Sarlona, but with long lifespans elves evolve proportionally slower. Both mix up a lot and travel around freely, witch shuld have genetically homogenized them millenias ago. Realistically both humans and elves should be mono-races, as both species didn't have time to develop differing skin color and other mutations. Yet both races somehow have American-style mixing of different skin colors. It's even worse of Dwarves who lived in one place since before we have records and still somehow have different skin colors. All to appease fragile American sensibilities.
Races in D&D were created in their modern forms by gods or other powerful supernatural beings. They did not evolve naturally. They did not have to develop language, use of fire, domestication of animals and plants, or the ability to craft tools out of materials found in the environment- they were all created able to do those things. Stop trying to use some half-remembered, misrepresented versions of high school biology in arguments about D&D. Racial diversity is not something new in D&D. Dragonlance had two races of dwarves, three or more races of elves, and humans of every skin color living on a continent smaller than Australia.
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.
And it was believable because then kept to themselves and barely ever crossbred witn Krinn being in Medieval Stasis and having appropriate medieval low mobility of population and xenophobia cranked to the max. Mountain dwarves and hill dwarves have ancient grudges separating them, dozen kinds of elves keep apart and humans see anyone who don't look like them as potential danger. Now Eberron lives in the prolonged New Age with highly mobile population, black white and yellow humans, elves and dwarves live side by side and frequently make babies with each other, and while xenophobia is still there and thriving it's mostly focused on nationalism instead of racism, so people don't really self-segreagate. By all means humans should have homogenized into a single race somewhere by 400-600 y.k. just like Earth humans are predicted to homogenize into a single race by 23-25-th century if current trends of mixing continue.
I think you're mistaking the course theorized by evolutionary biology = something like monochromatic genetic expression. It doesn't theorize that. Take skin color. Sure in the trajectory theorized what constitutes a "medium" tone will be recentered, but a spectrum will still exist, just some traits will be a lot less common in certain geographies than they are now. So I don't see why you see Eberron objectionable. I mean, I don't know the game world all too well, but what edition are you presented the DNA sequence distribution manifested in the arriving population or more lay genealogy? To play out the way you claim it has to be reflective of Earth's distributions, and that's really not evident and so goes to my earlier point that using Earth migration and news magazine understandings of evolutionary biology to rail against representation in fantasy worlds is just silly.
Besides Eberron is one instance of world design and has been a lot more Keith Baker driven that WotC driven (and evidently more in his control these days) so this doesn't seem to work insofar as supporting the broadside Brooklyn launched against 5e design sensibilities across the board.
Your chauvinism against what you see as American fragility or whatever is noted, or at least recognized as an expression you tend to perform, but it doesn't outweigh the fact that the game's an American brand and more centered in an American market, so likely will be designed to maximize its impact there. I really don't think the moves the game has taken in terms of what's basically art direction is hurting the game at all. Whatever chafe you and Brooklyn feel against how people are presented in the books seems to be good for business, or at least not hurting it.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
There's currently no "medium" to be recentered. The whole point of homogenization is that you end up with one global population instead of whole lot of local ones that don't mix up with each others and keep their differences. Which we still have on the majority of Earh, save Americas.
Eberron, particuarly Khorvaire and Aerenal were settlled by descendants of a relatively small group of colonists who intermingled a lot. There's no genetic differences between Kharnati and Brelish humans or between Aereni and Tairnadal elves, as they all came from the same stock - only cultural ones. I'd be perfectly fine with Humans of Sarlona or Drow of Xendrik to come in all different shades and forms, but Khorvaire humans and Aerenal Elves by all logic should all mono-race.
Moreso, Orks, that do have separate populations that don't mix with each other, somehow don't have racial differences in Eberron and Marcher orks would look roughly the same as Ghaskala or Carrion Tribes if you remove the tatoos, even though they of all species on Khorvaire should have them the most. Guess different shades of green don't sell as well as different shades of brown.
Chauvinism is irrational.
Not in selling the game, but it did hurt internal consistency of the lore. It's just that very few of the players care about it.
DMG Chapters 8 and 9, folks.
Your world. Your lore.
Other people's worlds. Their lores.
Alter the written words to suit your criteria. DM Chapter 8 includes examples of incorporating different lore. DMG Chapter 9 includes examples of changing mechanics.
We shouldn't really need to try to justify or invalidate ours or others' worlds.
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.
Some players just want a good time playing a fun character who represents them. I introduced most of my players to D&D about a year ago. They have no connection to the lore, and neither do I. We just want to play a fun game. One of the players wanted her character to be dark-skinned like she was. She just wants to be represented, so why should the lore stop her?
Sometimes it can be hard to see why other people are so bothered about things like representation. I know a nice guy who has the annoying habit of assuming every basic NPC (guard, goblin, bandit, etc) I introduce is male. Once someone even mentioned a character called Eliana (a female name) in passing and he used male pronouns to discuss her. I am a woman, and I play with a mostly female players. I like to have half of the characters be female and half be male, but this guy, who is a friend I like, never thinks about that sort of thing. It is not because he is malicious or sexist; he never has to think about things like representation because he is a white guy who sees himself in just about everything.
And as a final comment, the game has many unrealistic elements. One that bothers me personally is darkvision. The way an eye works is that rays enter a lens and converge to form an image. No one should be able to see in a lightless environment. I am sure every player has one rule, piece of lore, spell, etc that bothers them in some way because of how unrealistic it is. You can always adjust things specially for your group, or accept that some people like it that way.
To conclude, people like to be part of their fantasy worlds. It can be hard to see from their perspectives at times, and yes, the lore is not as consistent, but is it not worth it to have people feel welcomed? It is just a fantasy game.
In the game where you can play anything some people just have to play themselves. That level of vanity and lack of creativity never ceases to amaze me.
Internal consistency?
Because 9 times out f 10 it is forced, lazy and breaks immersion. It could be done well but rarely is.
In a story about people killing monsters and other peple? Yeah, I get why the other guy thinks it's weird when IRL like 98% of people in killing and dying business are male.
If you actually bothered to read some books containing the lore you would know it's not actually dark vision but heat vision that most DnD races have.
Being represented by your character is neither a sign of vanity nor of a lack of creativity. People that like people that represent themselves in some capacity are an entirely different matter than people who always play a Gary/Mary Sue version of themselves. I have ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) so it is much easier for me to play a race/character that has difficulties expressing/understanding emotions than one that can easily do this. This is why I like playing Lizardfolk, Dragonborn, Warforged, and Gnomes. That doesn't make me vain or uncreative, it makes me human. Everyone plays characters that they can understand and relate to, including you.
BS. Absolute BS. If a dark-skinned person wants to play a dark-skinned race because they can relate to them, the lore of the world making Drow be evil Lolth worshippers is less important than player agency. Lore is there to enhance the game, and it doesn't enhance it when it takes away the fun from another character.
Respectful representation is good representation. Any amount of inclusion is going to be forced, because you have to think about adding diversity to a hobby that is infamous for its lack in diversity. As long as it's not "look at our minorities, we're totally not bigoted" or "here are our stereotypical minorities that are punch-lines", any amount of representation is better than no representation, even if it's "forced".
I'd also be a bit more careful in your wording in the future. It currently very much comes off as the people who complained that MCU's Nick Fury is black, basically saying "but I don't want minorities in this!" That is likely not what you're going for, but is what is coming across to me and probably a few others.
Now this is complete nonsense and bigoted. This is advocating for 98% of PCs being male. Stop. Just stop. This is highly offensive and short-sighted. Anyone can play anything they want. It's not up to you to decide who plays what, especially at anyone else's table.
A prerequisite for playing D&D games is not reading the Drizzt novels or Ed Greenwood's FR books. Stop gatekeeping. 5e says "darkvision", not "infravision". Stop offending others based on what D&D books they've read/not read.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
People have different scenarios for escapism.
I can understand the appeal of a world filled with those who understand what it's like to be the player. It's not my thing, but I get it.
My escapism thing is a world filled as it would be expected with the singular tweak what what I am IRL simply doesn't matter in-game (which is unlike IRL at this time). It's such a small tweak in my opinion, but I can also see how people might see it as setting-breaking. I can't change that and I wouldn't try. This is about having fun and my fun doesn't override someone else's any more than someone else's overrides mine. We're playing this game cooperatively. We can't always have everything just for ourselves, and that's okay.
There are limits to what people can accept, too. If that's a problem, the best solution I can imagine is going separate ways - finding a table that's okay with one's criteria. I feel very confident to type that there will always be a table out there for you somewhere.
There's plenty of room for further creativity to envelope around players' escapisms and boundaries.
D&D is trying to promote inclusivity. I see no harm in that. It's modern marketing and it will happen - it's inevitable. It's also not dictating what players do. Everything I see Hasbro/WotC doing with D&D is presenting more options. What people do with those options is on the people. We're the ones in control outside their offices.
I can see from this thread that there are varying criteria for what people want with realism and fantasy - different things need to be realistic and different things are allowed to be fantasy to different people. That's not necessarily wrong.
What I do find wrong is insisting people must play a specific way in a specific story. The reasons people play D&D are different and that will affect how they play. There's nothing wrong with that.
Find those who mesh with your intents with D&D and let others do the same. I'm very certain that the tables you seek are out there.
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.
Let's keep things respectful, appropriate and courteous, okay folx? Let's not bring in real world topics, theories, or principles into a discussion of a fantasy setting, that only leads to arguments (as well as breaking forum rules on inappropriate content)
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
IMO if discrimination against a race is in a game, it should not be just because they are that race. There should be some reason (Like a recent war for example) that they would be mistrusted. The big problem in DnD is that the PHB, MM and DMG should just be the rules. Unfortunately they have leaned so much into the forgotten realms this edition that they even put lore in those books. Discrimination in LORE is ok as long as it is suitably justified (As mentioned above) but discrimination in the RULES should not exist.
I also think that people see the devs actions and immediately associate them with racism. Take drow for an example: Drow are usually portrayed as having dark skin. A lot of people took offence at that (I am not saying it was without reason, just that it was not the intention to be offensive). When wizards tried to fix it, by putting pale drow in Tasha's, everyone jumped down their throats. In the lore, they are a range of colours, and both pale and dark skinned drow make sense. They could be light skinned because they are always underground and they have no need for melanin in their skin and they could be darker coloured as it would help them blend in better in their environment. Both of these facts make sense, especially from an evolutionary standpoint.
I think the main mistake that people make is over associating things with other things. Some things are a legitimate problem, like drow being 'evil' in the rules and always being portrayed with black skin, and should be changed but even those are unintentional slights.
IMO DnD and other TTRPGs are the most inclusive games there are, because you literally design them yourself.
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
In my campaign, which is on pause, where I DM, racism is widespread and not frowned upon when it comes to "exotics", basically anyone non-human. But it's mainly concentrated in areas where one race dominates, as there are other places where another race dominates, and they'll be racist to anyone not like them.
I think this is natural for such a setting, and a mirror of our world without globalization.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
I honestly don't understand what you're trying to say here.
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
I could ask then.
Is there no evil in your campaigns? What are your players fighting against?
I could ask, is murder more socially acceptable than racism, sexual assault and general abuse? What I'm asking, do you portray evil in your campaign, and if yes, then how do you go about it?
Altrazin Aghanes - Wizard/Fighter
Varpulis Windhowl - Fighter
Skolson Demjon - Cleric/Fighter
It is not my problem if you are offended by the nomenclature that I use. Also, you spelled "patriarchy" wrong.
Did you read my post? I'm not even going to bother. If you can't see a difference between wanting to play a character you can relate to and playing a Mary/Gary Sue-ified carbon-copy of yourself, there's really no point in having this discussion. I absolutely cannot believe that you never play characters that you so much as can understand on a personal level.
I told you in the previous post what this means. It means we're human. We can roleplay things that we can relate to. We can't properly roleplay things we can't relate to in any way.
It is not reality that offends me, it is your insistence that 98% of PCs have to be male. D&D takes place in a fantasy world. Drow have a matriarchal society. Waterdeep and Silverymoon are more modern than most other cities in the world. Eberron is practically modern. If you can't understand why saying that 98% of player characters of a diverse slew of biologically different races have to be male is both offensive and delusional (as this is a freaking fantasy game where biology is different from humans to orcs, aarakocra, and grung, where not all PCs are brutish mercenaries), I don't know what to tell you.
I have absolutely no idea what the hell this is trying to say, and I'm not going to try to understand it. Respectful representation is good representation, even if it's "forced". If you think inclusion is bad, I suggest you play an earlier edition (which you likely already own), as it may be better suited for you than the changing player-scape of 5e.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Lots of inane potshots being taken back and forth and only a few have actually voiced what I believe in regarding "racism" in D&D.
I put it in quotes, due to the context I believe it SHOULD exist in. Orcs, as an example, being generally hated and at best distrusted throughout a region where they are notorious raiders. Drow, in areas where they have perhaps perpetrated surface raids, or, pretty much everywhere if it is a Forgotten Realms setting, due to.....well, them being evil and all. People being wary of Teiflings, some places not liking Dwarves, or Elves. All things that make sense, in a world where there is no interwebs and equality movements.
Homebrew settings are the same thing, IMO. For immersion, there should be a sense of realism and we are accustomed to some form of racism, no matter if it's wrong, we KNOW it has (and sadly still does) exist. Imposing this to the game world helps the players relate better to the world and offers tons of options to enhance the plotlines. The players join in to stop the "evil orcs!!" For a more modern spin, to jump on the "movement" bandwagons, the players strive to show the locals that most of the Orc tribes are NOT raiders and pillagers, but hunters and gatherers, to bridge the gap and make a change.
Being afraid to tackle a sensitive issue head on, in a pure fantasy setting is toxic to games of the imagination. It stifles creativity, for fear of stepping on toes, when in reality, racism in these fantasy settings is NOTHING more than a bunch of "imagine if....." statements. Anyone taking it too seriously needs to step off and get back in touch with reality, where such things DO matter.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.