WOTC could have avoided this entire headache by simply removing alignment from the game entirely as this in itself is a completely unrealistic premise, a gameist idea that does not actually depict anything from the real world. They didn't because they are trying to prove a political point, rather than just making the game better. What purpose does alignment actually serve (or has ever served) in the game other than creating hostility at the table. It always has been and always be a pointlessly stupid concept.
I agree alignment should be removed, but I've never thought for one second that they included alignment in the PHB in 2014 in anticipation of things like the BLM movement in 2020 in order to just make a point later on, that's an extremely convoluted plot and a silly idea. No, they included alignment because 5E was a nostalgia game meant to recapture people who left the game in the wake of 4E.
Just saying, racial alignments are problematic, but that doesn't mean alignments for PC's and NPC's are as well. One bad way a system is used is not a good enough justification remove all other instances of it. Racial alignments and NPC/PC alignments are very different things, and the need to remove racial alignments from the game certainly does not mean that you have to remove alignment from individual PC's and NPC's too
WOTC could have avoided this entire headache by simply removing alignment from the game entirely as this in itself is a completely unrealistic premise, a gameist idea that does not actually depict anything from the real world. They didn't because they are trying to prove a political point, rather than just making the game better. What purpose does alignment actually serve (or has ever served) in the game other than creating hostility at the table. It always has been and always be a pointlessly stupid concept.
I agree alignment should be removed, but I've never thought for one second that they included alignment in the PHB in 2014 in anticipation of things like the BLM movement in 2020 in order to just make a point later on, that's an extremely convoluted plot and a silly idea. No, they included alignment because 5E was a nostalgia game meant to recapture people who left the game in the wake of 4E.
Just saying, racial alignments are problematic, but that doesn't mean alignments for PC's and NPC's are as well. One bad way a system is used is not a good enough justification remove all other instances of it. Racial alignments and NPC/PC alignments are very different things, and the need to remove racial alignments from the game certainly does not mean that you have to remove alignment from individual PC's and NPC's too
We've had this discussion, you know I have my reasons for thinking Alignment is a bad mechanic and bad for the game, but this is not the topic of discussion at hand, so let's not derail this thread rehashing the other, okay?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
In my personal opinion, tieflings should definitely have at least some suspicion thrown their way by at least some people if:
a.) There are malevolent fiends in your world.
b.) Tieflings' origin has any connection whatsoever to those malevolent fiends.
c.) There are fiends who they could easily be mistaken for like cambions or succubi/incubi.
That being said, if tieflings are a well-known and well-documented phenomenon (including the knowledge that tieflings =/= fiends), then there's grounds for them being accepted in the wider world.
It's a fuzzy topic to be sure because, unlike in real life, in fantasy certain things are... well... 'set'.
For example; Demons/devils/etc are typically 'evil'. It's part of who they are and in most settings both in and out of D&D they exist as either beings who come into existance ONLY because of negative/evil emotions like greed or pride, or are beings that rebelled against heaven (for whatever reason) and, if heaven is the good place, that almost makes them evil, or at best neutral, by default. While maybe one or two examples could be found who may be 'redeemed' or at least not as vile as their counterparts, if you pointed to a random demon and said 'that one is evil' they'd likely confirm it and bite off your finger. In Pathfinder gnomes are highly inclined towards 'chaotic' alignments because they literally NEED new experiences to survive. If a gnome stops trying new things or whatever they undergo a 'bleaching' which eventually kills them. While a lawful gnome could exist you're almost certainly looking at a gnome who has resigned themselves to death or, at best, is doing their best to seek out new experiences while at least adhiring to the letter of the law. Because if they don't, they die.
If you looked at a human and declared them to be of X alignment, you'd have a 1 in 9 chance of being right (Well, I suspect there's more TN humans than CE ones, but in principle you'd be right). If you looked at a Drow and declared that they were evil, you'd be right more often than not, but there's absolutely NOTHING stopping one from rejecting traditional drow culture and deciding to become a lawful good cabbage farmer; at least in so far as race is concerned. This is because of the very... annoying... issue where a culture and a race tend to be more or less the same thing in fictional settings. It's not that all Krogan are violent warriors (we see scientists, engineers, and what little we see of Krogan females suggests they are at least not as warrior-inclined as the males.), but Krogan culture DOES and almost every Krogan we see adhires TO Krogan culture.
So it's... fuzzy. There's definately races in fictional settings which would be all/nearly all of one specific alignment to the point where not at least assuming they were would be foolish. But there are exceptions. There's cultures which an entire race adhires to which makes it very difficult to distinguish the culture from the race/individual. There's also races where no overriding alignment could be reasonably distinguished. While I personally tend to treat tieflings as beings who could be of any alignment, but the discrimination they've suffered inclines them towards at least the chaotic and neutral/evil ones, I fully understand that there's absolutely nothing preventing a LG tiefling paladin and that this isn't the same for all worlds. At the same time if someone tried to tell me that a devil was ACTUALLY neutral/good I'd assume it's either a VERY rare example (like, 1 in a million) or the GM was breaking from established lore for whatever reason.
The collective fantasy of D&D (just like any RPG) is a thing that exists in the consciousness of the player base and the fact that Wizards of the Coast is constantly messing with it is actually a problem, it's the primary reason 4e failed as a game and it's why 6e will fail as a game if they push too hard and there is evidence of that all over this forum. The collective fantasy can evolve but the community can never handle abrupt re-writes of it.
There are elements in D&D that are really well defined, engrained into the consciousness of players, and part of the assumption everyone will automatically make as a default (aka the collective fantasy). You can take any 5 random D&D players from any part of the world, from any generation of D&D and there are certain things about D&D they will all believe to be true. Orcs are evil monsters to killed, you always check doors in dungeons for traps, Rangers are good with bows, Rogues backstab, Dwarves love Ale, Elves are immune to sleep and charm etc.. etc..
This collective fantasy is what has made D&D the most popular RPG in the world, it's the foundation of its success. It has nothing to do with settings. Settings are minor alterations of this collective fantasy, intentional deviations that are tolerated as the premise of alternative settings is alternative collective fantasy but within those settings you have smaller bubbles of collective fantasy that are created as part of the setting.
I would have thought that this lesson had been learned given how many times TSR and Wizards of the Coast was hit over the head with it over the years. Each generation of D&D thinks D&D is immune to this concept and each generation has been proven wrong, I don't see why this generation will be any different.
Times change. The consciousness of playerbase changes. There is no such thing as a default setting that is chiseled in stone and set up on a holy mountain. Generic fantasy tropes have changed along with IRL culture. A century ago a person with dark skin was considered to be something like an animal in the collective fantasy of the western civilisation. Half a century ago homosexualism was considered a criminal offense in the collective fantasy. These things are no longer true. And none of them made anything successful. Stereotypes and ideology have nothing to do with success (though they can be a reason of failure), success is result of precise calculation and hard work. D&D5e is successful because it's elegant, accessible, flexible, and it has convenient online tools that help play a lot. Since first edition, the game has seen the addition of dragonborn, tieflings, warlocks, the game was declared satan worship in the 80s until WotC renamed demons into tanar'ri and devils into baatezu, entire settings like planescape were added that too exist in the "collective fantasy". Of course stereotypes exist. But they change. Usually for better - it's called evolution. Just like orcs, who moved from being mindless monsters since first described by Tolkien, to barbaric people with warrior-centric culture - which is who they are in collective fantasy now, judging by most videogames.
The collective fantasy of D&D (just like any RPG) is a thing that exists in the consciousness of the player base and the fact that Wizards of the Coast is constantly messing with it is actually a problem, it's the primary reason 4e failed as a game and it's why 6e will fail as a game if they push too hard and there is evidence of that all over this forum. The collective fantasy can evolve but the community can never handle abrupt re-writes of it.
There are elements in D&D that are really well defined, engrained into the consciousness of players, and part of the assumption everyone will automatically make as a default (aka the collective fantasy). You can take any 5 random D&D players from any part of the world, from any generation of D&D and there are certain things about D&D they will all believe to be true. Orcs are evil monsters to killed, you always check doors in dungeons for traps, Rangers are good with bows, Rogues backstab, Dwarves love Ale, Elves are immune to sleep and charm etc.. etc..
This collective fantasy is what has made D&D the most popular RPG in the world, it's the foundation of its success. It has nothing to do with settings. Settings are minor alterations of this collective fantasy, intentional deviations that are tolerated as the premise of alternative settings is alternative collective fantasy but within those settings you have smaller bubbles of collective fantasy that are created as part of the setting.
I would have thought that this lesson had been learned given how many times TSR and Wizards of the Coast was hit over the head with it over the years. Each generation of D&D thinks D&D is immune to this concept and each generation has been proven wrong, I don't see why this generation will be any different.
Okay. So, you think that D&D has a core identity. I entirely disagree with your examples and I think your base premise is extremely biased from your mypoic view of the game.
So, let's go through some of your examples of what you think "the core of D&D is", and debunk your idiotic and shortsighted argument. (Note: I'm not calling you an idiot. I'm saying your argument is idiotic. Big difference.)
Orcs are evil monsters. Not in Eberron. Which, if you're arguing in good faith, you'll admit is one of the most popular settings in D&D history, and it was made by Wizards of the Coast (Keith Baker played a major role in its development, but WotC are the ones that made the setting what it is now). This also isn't true in Exandria, the world of Critical Role, and it's also an extremely popular D&D setting (given Critical Role's ridiculous success). This isn't true in Mystara, where the representation of Orcs was definitely bad, but they at least weren't always evil monsters. This isn't true in the Forgotten Realms, with the Odonti and Tribe of Many-Arrows. I'm not even mentioning the settings where Orcs don't exist, so them being evil monsters is not a part of the setting, even though they definitely still count as being official D&D settings. This includes Theros, Ravnica, Dark Sun (where they used to exist, but are extinct), Dragonlance, Birthright, and probably a few others that I'm forgetting. Orcs being evil monsters is not a core part of D&D, because a) it's been false in the main setting for longer than I've been alive, b) it's false for the many settings where orcs are non-existent, and c) there are a lot of settings that do have Orcs, but they're not evil monsters.
Dwarves love ale. Again, world-specific and cultural. There are worlds where dwarves don't exist (Ravnica, Theros) and worlds where dwarves aren't the bundle of stereotypes about toxic masculinity. There is nothing inherent about dwarves that make them love ale/mead/beer. This is a stereotype, just like "horny bards". If you think "horny bards" isn't a core part of D&D, I see no reason why "dwarves love ale" is.
You always check doors in dungeons for traps. Yeah, if you're not an idiot/are at a table where dungeon-delving is a regular occurrence, and the DM regularly traps the doors. You can easily run a campaign where the PCs never journey into a dungeon with trapped doors, or where they never even go into the classical definition of a "dungeon" in D&D.
Rogues backstab. If you mean "backstabbing" by "betraying their party", I'd argue that most people like playing in groups where the PCs get along and don't betray each other. If you mean "literally stabbing people in the back", I'd argue that this is largely unsupported by 5e mechanics, and thus is no more a core part of the game than Wizards saying the word "abracadabra" is.
There are a lot of things that you think are core to the game that are obviously just from your own internal biases and experiences. I can guarantee you that if there was a new D&D world published tomorrow where dwarves don't drink (any more than humans, that is), orcs aren't evil, and rogues don't backstab and absolutely no one would throw a fit except for the cranky old grognards that lost their shit when Eberron was released and became super popular.
I can go even further beyond minor cultural/non-mechanical parts of D&D. Why is "Orcs are Evil" a core part of D&D, but THAC0 isn't? Why aren't all D&D settings required to take place in Greyhawk, if it was the setting designed by the person who made D&D? Let's go back even further. Why isn't "race as class" still a core part of D&D? Why aren't we all playing games in Blackmoor because the first games took place there? Whatever happened to gold granting you experience points? Or alignment languages? Or strength caps for female characters?
I'm 21 years old. I turned 21 yesterday, actually. And every single part of D&D that I mentioned in the last paragraph is older than I am. However, none of them are considered core parts of the game anymore and haven't been since before I was born.
There is no "core identity" to D&D. The game has ranged from grimdark horror pocket dimensions to gonzo space adventures to magitek dungeonpunk to gritty sword-and-psionics games about why protecting the environment is a good thing. There is no single core identity of the game that everyone that plays it will agree on. And you aren't somehow automatically in-tune with what the actual definition of the game is. You just like playing a certain way. Just like everyone else in this hobby. Your way is no more correct or incorrect than anyone else's way. You cannot and should not try to speak as if you have any sort of position of authority in this discussion. You do not. You do not get to tell anyone else that the way they play the game is wrong and that they don't know what the core of the game is. You are allowed to play the game how you want and enjoy your method of playing, but don't pretend for a moment that your way is superior to my way or anyone else's or that because you've been playing the game for longer than I've been alive you somehow have a more valid place in this discussion.
In my opinion, the closest thing that D&D has to a "core identity" is "group-based tabletop roleplaying fantasy game with dice". And even that definition isn't perfect (you can play it digitally, without dice, can reskin the fantasy elements as sci-fi, and could even play it completely on your own). But that's the definition that I think most people would agree on. You can play a game of D&D where none of the core fantasy races exist (Theros). You can play a game of D&D where you never come across a dragon (Dark Sun). You can play a game of D&D without any of the main stereotypes of the classes and races. You can even play a game of D&D where dwarves are all allergic to alcohol and that would still be a game of D&D.
(Also, 4e didn't fail as a game. It sold well, in spite of the outrage that it caused amongst the oldest fans of the game. According to Wizards of the Coast, every edition of D&D has outsold the edition that came before it. 4e didn't fail. It just wasn't as ridiculously profitable as WotC/Hasbro wanted.)
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Times change. The consciousness of playerbase changes. There is no such thing as a default setting that is chiseled in stone and set up on a holy mountain.
Of course, there is. I can't imagine why anyone would think otherwise.
If in your setting Dwarfs have wings and fly, you are going to have to explain that to your players. The default assumption for all D&D players will be that Dwarves are mountain-dwelling, mineral mining, ale swilling, short, bearded and tough people. If they are not that in your setting, you will have to explain it to them.
That is collective fantasy in action. That fact hasn't change in 50 years of the game, I don't know why anyone would think it will change in the next 50. We aren't talking about real life stereotypes or social issues, we are talking about fantasy tropes, people don't let these things change in their collective fantasy because they don't want it to change. Sure there are exceptions in unique settings, but rarely does a setting have such impact that it alters the collective fantasy.
There are rare cases when the collective fantasy does change, but it really is very rare.
Orcs aren't enemies in collective fantasy anymore, no matter how hard you try to press it. Not to mention that elves are not immortal, can't walk on snow, and don't have divine lineage that puts them above other races but renders them unable to change the world. That "collective fantasy" changed since Tolkien times. Dwarves have females. They originally didn't. Gnomes and tieflings have become a thing. They were not a part of "collective fantasy" in 1973. Now they are. "Collective fantasy" changed. Some tropes survive, some don't. Evolution is a fact of life.
It feels like it ruins the whole point of the race. Every person I've played with that played a tiefling had the fact that they were outcasts as at least part of the reason why they wanted to play it. They ENJOYED being on the fringe of society and toeing the line between being normal (if usually highly chaotic) people and people's perception of them being, well, hellspawn. They would do things like bluff to pretend to go full demon/evil to scare away bandits or their character would be the kind who naturally enjoyed being on the less-reputable side of life. It was why they wanted to play the race. Making them 'widely accepted' feels well-intentioned but misguided and ruining the whole point. Am I alone in this experience? Am I mis-interpreting it?
The races in One D&D and Monsters of the Multiverse are meant to be generic and setting-agnostic, and their lore is intentionally as nonspecific as possible. Tieflings might be persecuted on the Sword Coast; they have no reason to be persecuted in Sigil. You can absolutely have them experience prejudice if the setting calls for it (and the players/DM agree, since racial prejudice can be a sensitive topic).
To give you a specific example of why I think this is a step in the right direction, back when 5E was D&D Next, I was really enamoured with drow and wanted to play one, but the text specifically said something along the lines of "drow adventurers are extremely rare, you must ask your DM for permission to play one". Well that was discouraging. I'd be playing a character who was included as an exception to the rules and would be an oddity wherever they went. Not exactly how I was picturing things. The actual 5E PHB addressed this, and that was a really really good change. I have no doubt that player feedback has led to the sort of reimagining of the lore behind the other races, too.
Why are people talking about orcs and dwarves and racial purity and junk in a thread about tieflings? This thread is for sexy sexy devil girls (and boys, and those in between the two). Argue about racial purity and how D&D is doomed to fail if it doesn't adhere strongly to racial stereotyping in another thread. Or, even better idea: don't do that, and let's just enjoy our sexy sexy devil people in this thread, ne?
If the D&D identity requires that there be entire races of creatures that talk like people, dress like people, and think like people, but are patently not people and thus it is okay to treat them in ways that are not morally acceptable ways to treat thinking and feeling beings, then the D&D identity doesn't deserve to exist. Because that is inherently a problem.
It is a problem because it is hurtful to those of us who have been subjected to treatment like that because we look a certain way. Having people who are not quite people because they look funny directly mirrors the kind of treatment some of us get in real life. Anytime someone assumes something about me, they're not treating me as a person, they're treating me as some clone in a faceless monolith.
This is not even talking about the idea that it encourages racist behavior. That is a slightly more tenuous position.
Luckily, D&D *doesn't* require that in order to be D&D. I reject the notion that it, or any other fantasy franchise, does. I posit that if you think it does, that speaks more about you than it does about D&D.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I need to have a survey to make an observation? In that case I mirror the question back, what survey do you have to back up that these perceptions do not exist?
My data is based on nearly 40 years of consistently playing and running D&D, how long have you been collecting information about D&D?
Tropes exist? Yes. Tropes change? Yes. The entire recorded history proves that. Or do you still consider Gaellic and Germanic people cultureless barbarians?
I need to have a survey to make an observation? In that case I mirror the question back, what survey do you have to back up that these perceptions do not exist?
My data is based on nearly 40 years of consistently playing and running D&D, how long have you been collecting information about D&D?
Tropes exist? Yes. Tropes change? Yes. The entire recorded history proves that. Or do you still consider Gaellic and Germanic people cultureless barbarians?
What on earth do Gaellic and Germanic people have to do with D&D? I have no idea what you're even on about. We are talking about Dungeons and Dragons, a make belief world created so that players can take on the roles of adventures who go around and kick the crap out of fantasy creatures designed for the sole purpose of entertainment. It does not make me a bad person to make a character who hates Orcs and murders them on-site.. Its not some sort of psychological or social test of my morality, I can distinguish between a fantasy game and the real world.
They're attempting to draw parallels between real world history and how D&D can, and has, evolved. It's not the best example, but I can tell what they're aiming for.
To the Roman Empire, the Franks were bariarians. But the term "barbarian" just refers to someone who doesn't speak the language. In this case, Latin. In reality, the Franks were a major thorn in the side of the empire throughout the 3rd century. They had a rich culture, outlasted the Roman Empire, united much of Western Europe after Rome's decline, and eventually formed the Holy Roman Empire.
I could go on about the Irish Celts and Scottish Picts, but I don't think it's necessary.
Tropes don't change so much as they fall into disuse. They're just storytelling tools. A new sub-trope or sister-trope might emerge, but the old trope doesn't go away. If you want to make a character who just wants to slaughter orcs, you can do that. It's a racist character, and that's your prerogative. You don't get to complain when other people take umbrage with racist characters. Nor can you claim fantasy as a shield because you're fantasizing about being a racist.
Tropes don't change so much as they fall into disuse. They're just storytelling tools. A new sub-trope or sister-trope might emerge, but the old trope doesn't go away. If you want to make a character who just wants to slaughter orcs, you can do that. It's a racist character, and that's your prerogative. You don't get to complain when other people take umbrage with racist characters. Nor can you claim fantasy as a shield because you're fantasizing about being a racist
That is about the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard. What you are suggesting is that what I do in a game is a reflection of who I am in the real world, do I have that about right?
I am not going to speak for Jounichi, but for me it's not about it reflecting who you are, it's about literally how you're treating the real people you are interacting with. Talking about fictional people in the way you do is actively hurtful to me, and I 'm sure it is hurtful to other people who have experienced discrimination as well. Yes, tieflings are portrayed as people, your stance that they are not people is contradicted by everything we have from WOTC. Yes, I know they are fictional people and not real people. Yes I know the difference between fiction and reality. None of that is the point.
The point is that the way you talk about people is hurtful. That is an action you are doing that directly affects people in the real world.
This is a game.. Orcs don't represent people
Orcs are people. They talk like people, dress like people, think like people, and feel like people. They are a playable race. They are called people in the lore and the mechanics. Wizards reiterated their view of orcs as people, and their commitment to treat them as such in their Diversity statement from 2020. Suffice it to say, Orcs are people. As are Drow. As are Tieflings.
seeing that association, is actually super racist.
You see, this makes me think you are a super bad judge about what is or is not racist. Not only are you wrong about how Tieflings are people, but you miss the point about where the racism is. It's not that calling orcs people is racist, nor is drawing comparisons between how they are treated and how real life people are treated. The issue that people are complaining about is that the way orcs and drow and tieflings are treated in some setting directly mirrors treatment that real life people get because they look different and being confronted with that kind of thing in the default lore is hurtful and unnecessary. I don't think I'm a tiefling or a drow. But I don't like it when I'm slapped across the face with the kind of language that has been used to hurt me in real life. That's the point.
The game does not simulate real life, when you kill monsters in the game it doesn't mean you are psychologically unstable. It doesn't mean anything.. it just means your playing a game.
Playing a game does not excuse you from doing or saying things that hurt real people just because you're playing pretend.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The collective fantasy of D&D (just like any RPG) is a thing that exists in the consciousness of the player base
No, it is not. Speak for yourself, not the the whole player base.
<snip> I would have thought that this lesson had been learned given how many times TSR and Wizards of the Coast was hit over the head with it over the years. Each generation of D&D thinks D&D is immune to this concept and each generation has been proven wrong, I don't see why this generation will be any different.
WotC is currently learning the "lesson" that D&D is more popular than it ever was, and keeps gaining in popularity as they make it more palatable to more people. That includes the "current direction."
It is not relevant at all, it just so happens that Turok The Orc Slayer is a Ranger who's favored enemy is Orcs and Gnolls.. but I guess next you're going to tell me that the Ranger class is racist?
Orcs are neither people or animals, they are make-believe bad guys in a game, they are the same as toasters, objects that have no real-world value or consideration. They have no relevance in the real world.. hell at least with a toaster you can toast bread.
You do understand that folks are talking about the in-game reality for Turok, right?
For example, if Turok did evil stuff, Turok could be labelled as "evil," even though Turok is imaginary. Similarly, if Turok believed that all Halflings are inferior-trash-that-must-be-eliminated, Turok would be "racist," in the game world, despite all concerned being imaginary. Therefore:
Given that Orcs are "people" in the default setting of current Forgotten Realms (look it up!), not to mention many other published D&D worlds, with free will and choice and personality and all that...
And given that Turok kills orcs because they're there (or whatever Turok's background motivation specifies)...
...Turok could be considered racist against orcs, in game.
Just like how some players may not feel comfortable roleplaying an evil character, some might not want to roleplay a racist character. Some might not want to be "in a party" with a racist character...after all, party cohesion is a thing. Some DMs might not be comfortable with characters like Turok running around being considered a "hero."
What are people's experiences with running tieflings in 5e? Has anyone ever actually had a game where their tiffle was a revilved societal outcast? I know I've actually tried once or twice, but modern DMs don't really seem to vibe on the idea and my tiffle characters have been more-or-less ordinary citizens even in worlds/settings where they ostensibly shouldn't have been. Curious whether anyone's ever actually played a tiffle character who had "shunned by society" as a serious and significant part of their character arc, and what they thought of that game.
Tropes don't change so much as they fall into disuse. They're just storytelling tools. A new sub-trope or sister-trope might emerge, but the old trope doesn't go away. If you want to make a character who just wants to slaughter orcs, you can do that. It's a racist character, and that's your prerogative. You don't get to complain when other people take umbrage with racist characters. Nor can you claim fantasy as a shield because you're fantasizing about being a racist
That is about the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard. What you are suggesting is that what I do in a game is a reflection of who I am in the real world, do I have that about right? So when I play Sid Meiers Civilization and I nuke the French, it's because I fantasize about mass murder? When I play Assassins Creed and murder people to complete levels, I'm a psychopath? Or when I play donkey kong and knock him off the building it's because I have a fetish for killing primates?
This is a game.. Orcs don't represent people, seeing that association, is actually super racist. The game does not simulate real life, when you kill monsters in the game it doesn't mean you are psychologically unstable. It doesn't mean anything.. it just means your playing a game.
When you play a game, you play by its conventions. Comparing playing D&D to video game franchises like Civilization and Assassin's Creed is, I think, telling. Those are scripted experiences. You're limited by the game's engine. But not so with D&D. You're only limited by your imagination.
As Ophidimancer has pointed out, all these disparate races are people. Drow and orcs have their own culture, language and traditions. Tieflings may as well be an offshoot, like aasimar and genasi, that can come from anywhere. They're not monsters, and the game doesn't treat them as monsters. That may be a modern convention, but it's still the game's convention going forward. Your insistence otherwise, your refusal to tow the company line, isn't going to change that.
You're actively dehumanizing what the game, the official fiction, refers to as both people and humanoids. And if you can't see how other, real people won't be offended by that, then you're a lost cause.
What are people's experiences with running tieflings in 5e? Has anyone ever actually had a game where their tiffle was a revilved societal outcast? I know I've actually tried once or twice, but modern DMs don't really seem to vibe on the idea and my tiffle characters have been more-or-less ordinary citizens even in worlds/settings where they ostensibly shouldn't have been. Curious whether anyone's ever actually played a tiffle character who had "shunned by society" as a serious and significant part of their character arc, and what they thought of that game.
My experiences with tieflings have been generally wonderful experiences where tieflings are an accepted part of society and are treated no differently than human, elves, dwarves, etc. I did once play a drow where the DM treated me like the social outcast, hated for existing but barely tolerated in society. It was such an unpleasant experience, I changed characters after a few sessions to a human PC to fit their human-centric campaign. I would not choose to play at a table where I am the target of bigotry again, be it as a drow or a tiefling.
The last time I heard of this notion of "collective fantasy" was from that one MrRhexx (D&D Youtube influencer who's big on Forgotten Realms lore, especially older lore) video I watched where he basically talked about why he doesn't want ability score increases to be shifted to backgrounds from races.
My takeaway is that the collective fantasy is a myth. Races, like tieflings, orcs, and so on, are what the DM wants them to be in their world. And that world, whether it is homebrew or even a pre-written world, is going to be to the DM's tastes.
Just saying, racial alignments are problematic, but that doesn't mean alignments for PC's and NPC's are as well. One bad way a system is used is not a good enough justification remove all other instances of it. Racial alignments and NPC/PC alignments are very different things, and the need to remove racial alignments from the game certainly does not mean that you have to remove alignment from individual PC's and NPC's too
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HERE.We've had this discussion, you know I have my reasons for thinking Alignment is a bad mechanic and bad for the game, but this is not the topic of discussion at hand, so let's not derail this thread rehashing the other, okay?
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In my personal opinion, tieflings should definitely have at least some suspicion thrown their way by at least some people if:
a.) There are malevolent fiends in your world.
b.) Tieflings' origin has any connection whatsoever to those malevolent fiends.
c.) There are fiends who they could easily be mistaken for like cambions or succubi/incubi.
That being said, if tieflings are a well-known and well-documented phenomenon (including the knowledge that tieflings =/= fiends), then there's grounds for them being accepted in the wider world.
It's a fuzzy topic to be sure because, unlike in real life, in fantasy certain things are... well... 'set'.
For example; Demons/devils/etc are typically 'evil'. It's part of who they are and in most settings both in and out of D&D they exist as either beings who come into existance ONLY because of negative/evil emotions like greed or pride, or are beings that rebelled against heaven (for whatever reason) and, if heaven is the good place, that almost makes them evil, or at best neutral, by default. While maybe one or two examples could be found who may be 'redeemed' or at least not as vile as their counterparts, if you pointed to a random demon and said 'that one is evil' they'd likely confirm it and bite off your finger. In Pathfinder gnomes are highly inclined towards 'chaotic' alignments because they literally NEED new experiences to survive. If a gnome stops trying new things or whatever they undergo a 'bleaching' which eventually kills them. While a lawful gnome could exist you're almost certainly looking at a gnome who has resigned themselves to death or, at best, is doing their best to seek out new experiences while at least adhiring to the letter of the law. Because if they don't, they die.
If you looked at a human and declared them to be of X alignment, you'd have a 1 in 9 chance of being right (Well, I suspect there's more TN humans than CE ones, but in principle you'd be right). If you looked at a Drow and declared that they were evil, you'd be right more often than not, but there's absolutely NOTHING stopping one from rejecting traditional drow culture and deciding to become a lawful good cabbage farmer; at least in so far as race is concerned. This is because of the very... annoying... issue where a culture and a race tend to be more or less the same thing in fictional settings. It's not that all Krogan are violent warriors (we see scientists, engineers, and what little we see of Krogan females suggests they are at least not as warrior-inclined as the males.), but Krogan culture DOES and almost every Krogan we see adhires TO Krogan culture.
So it's... fuzzy. There's definately races in fictional settings which would be all/nearly all of one specific alignment to the point where not at least assuming they were would be foolish. But there are exceptions. There's cultures which an entire race adhires to which makes it very difficult to distinguish the culture from the race/individual. There's also races where no overriding alignment could be reasonably distinguished. While I personally tend to treat tieflings as beings who could be of any alignment, but the discrimination they've suffered inclines them towards at least the chaotic and neutral/evil ones, I fully understand that there's absolutely nothing preventing a LG tiefling paladin and that this isn't the same for all worlds. At the same time if someone tried to tell me that a devil was ACTUALLY neutral/good I'd assume it's either a VERY rare example (like, 1 in a million) or the GM was breaking from established lore for whatever reason.
Times change. The consciousness of playerbase changes. There is no such thing as a default setting that is chiseled in stone and set up on a holy mountain. Generic fantasy tropes have changed along with IRL culture. A century ago a person with dark skin was considered to be something like an animal in the collective fantasy of the western civilisation. Half a century ago homosexualism was considered a criminal offense in the collective fantasy. These things are no longer true. And none of them made anything successful. Stereotypes and ideology have nothing to do with success (though they can be a reason of failure), success is result of precise calculation and hard work. D&D5e is successful because it's elegant, accessible, flexible, and it has convenient online tools that help play a lot. Since first edition, the game has seen the addition of dragonborn, tieflings, warlocks, the game was declared satan worship in the 80s until WotC renamed demons into tanar'ri and devils into baatezu, entire settings like planescape were added that too exist in the "collective fantasy". Of course stereotypes exist. But they change. Usually for better - it's called evolution. Just like orcs, who moved from being mindless monsters since first described by Tolkien, to barbaric people with warrior-centric culture - which is who they are in collective fantasy now, judging by most videogames.
Okay. So, you think that D&D has a core identity. I entirely disagree with your examples and I think your base premise is extremely biased from your mypoic view of the game.
So, let's go through some of your examples of what you think "the core of D&D is", and debunk your idiotic and shortsighted argument. (Note: I'm not calling you an idiot. I'm saying your argument is idiotic. Big difference.)
There are a lot of things that you think are core to the game that are obviously just from your own internal biases and experiences. I can guarantee you that if there was a new D&D world published tomorrow where dwarves don't drink (any more than humans, that is), orcs aren't evil, and rogues don't backstab and absolutely no one would throw a fit except for the cranky old grognards that lost their shit when Eberron was released and became super popular.
I can go even further beyond minor cultural/non-mechanical parts of D&D. Why is "Orcs are Evil" a core part of D&D, but THAC0 isn't? Why aren't all D&D settings required to take place in Greyhawk, if it was the setting designed by the person who made D&D? Let's go back even further. Why isn't "race as class" still a core part of D&D? Why aren't we all playing games in Blackmoor because the first games took place there? Whatever happened to gold granting you experience points? Or alignment languages? Or strength caps for female characters?
I'm 21 years old. I turned 21 yesterday, actually. And every single part of D&D that I mentioned in the last paragraph is older than I am. However, none of them are considered core parts of the game anymore and haven't been since before I was born.
There is no "core identity" to D&D. The game has ranged from grimdark horror pocket dimensions to gonzo space adventures to magitek dungeonpunk to gritty sword-and-psionics games about why protecting the environment is a good thing. There is no single core identity of the game that everyone that plays it will agree on. And you aren't somehow automatically in-tune with what the actual definition of the game is. You just like playing a certain way. Just like everyone else in this hobby. Your way is no more correct or incorrect than anyone else's way. You cannot and should not try to speak as if you have any sort of position of authority in this discussion. You do not. You do not get to tell anyone else that the way they play the game is wrong and that they don't know what the core of the game is. You are allowed to play the game how you want and enjoy your method of playing, but don't pretend for a moment that your way is superior to my way or anyone else's or that because you've been playing the game for longer than I've been alive you somehow have a more valid place in this discussion.
In my opinion, the closest thing that D&D has to a "core identity" is "group-based tabletop roleplaying fantasy game with dice". And even that definition isn't perfect (you can play it digitally, without dice, can reskin the fantasy elements as sci-fi, and could even play it completely on your own). But that's the definition that I think most people would agree on. You can play a game of D&D where none of the core fantasy races exist (Theros). You can play a game of D&D where you never come across a dragon (Dark Sun). You can play a game of D&D without any of the main stereotypes of the classes and races. You can even play a game of D&D where dwarves are all allergic to alcohol and that would still be a game of D&D.
(Also, 4e didn't fail as a game. It sold well, in spite of the outrage that it caused amongst the oldest fans of the game. According to Wizards of the Coast, every edition of D&D has outsold the edition that came before it. 4e didn't fail. It just wasn't as ridiculously profitable as WotC/Hasbro wanted.)
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Orcs aren't enemies in collective fantasy anymore, no matter how hard you try to press it. Not to mention that elves are not immortal, can't walk on snow, and don't have divine lineage that puts them above other races but renders them unable to change the world. That "collective fantasy" changed since Tolkien times. Dwarves have females. They originally didn't. Gnomes and tieflings have become a thing. They were not a part of "collective fantasy" in 1973. Now they are. "Collective fantasy" changed. Some tropes survive, some don't. Evolution is a fact of life.
The races in One D&D and Monsters of the Multiverse are meant to be generic and setting-agnostic, and their lore is intentionally as nonspecific as possible. Tieflings might be persecuted on the Sword Coast; they have no reason to be persecuted in Sigil. You can absolutely have them experience prejudice if the setting calls for it (and the players/DM agree, since racial prejudice can be a sensitive topic).
To give you a specific example of why I think this is a step in the right direction, back when 5E was D&D Next, I was really enamoured with drow and wanted to play one, but the text specifically said something along the lines of "drow adventurers are extremely rare, you must ask your DM for permission to play one". Well that was discouraging. I'd be playing a character who was included as an exception to the rules and would be an oddity wherever they went. Not exactly how I was picturing things. The actual 5E PHB addressed this, and that was a really really good change. I have no doubt that player feedback has led to the sort of reimagining of the lore behind the other races, too.
I just gotta ask how many world-spanning surveys you ran to back this up, especially on specific matters like perception of orcs and tieflings.
Why are people talking about orcs and dwarves and racial purity and junk in a thread about tieflings? This thread is for sexy sexy devil girls (and boys, and those in between the two). Argue about racial purity and how D&D is doomed to fail if it doesn't adhere strongly to racial stereotyping in another thread. Or, even better idea: don't do that, and let's just enjoy our sexy sexy devil people in this thread, ne?
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If the D&D identity requires that there be entire races of creatures that talk like people, dress like people, and think like people, but are patently not people and thus it is okay to treat them in ways that are not morally acceptable ways to treat thinking and feeling beings, then the D&D identity doesn't deserve to exist. Because that is inherently a problem.
It is a problem because it is hurtful to those of us who have been subjected to treatment like that because we look a certain way. Having people who are not quite people because they look funny directly mirrors the kind of treatment some of us get in real life. Anytime someone assumes something about me, they're not treating me as a person, they're treating me as some clone in a faceless monolith.
This is not even talking about the idea that it encourages racist behavior. That is a slightly more tenuous position.
Luckily, D&D *doesn't* require that in order to be D&D. I reject the notion that it, or any other fantasy franchise, does. I posit that if you think it does, that speaks more about you than it does about D&D.
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Tropes exist? Yes. Tropes change? Yes. The entire recorded history proves that. Or do you still consider Gaellic and Germanic people cultureless barbarians?
They're attempting to draw parallels between real world history and how D&D can, and has, evolved. It's not the best example, but I can tell what they're aiming for.
To the Roman Empire, the Franks were bariarians. But the term "barbarian" just refers to someone who doesn't speak the language. In this case, Latin. In reality, the Franks were a major thorn in the side of the empire throughout the 3rd century. They had a rich culture, outlasted the Roman Empire, united much of Western Europe after Rome's decline, and eventually formed the Holy Roman Empire.
I could go on about the Irish Celts and Scottish Picts, but I don't think it's necessary.
Tropes don't change so much as they fall into disuse. They're just storytelling tools. A new sub-trope or sister-trope might emerge, but the old trope doesn't go away. If you want to make a character who just wants to slaughter orcs, you can do that. It's a racist character, and that's your prerogative. You don't get to complain when other people take umbrage with racist characters. Nor can you claim fantasy as a shield because you're fantasizing about being a racist.
I am not going to speak for Jounichi, but for me it's not about it reflecting who you are, it's about literally how you're treating the real people you are interacting with. Talking about fictional people in the way you do is actively hurtful to me, and I 'm sure it is hurtful to other people who have experienced discrimination as well. Yes, tieflings are portrayed as people, your stance that they are not people is contradicted by everything we have from WOTC. Yes, I know they are fictional people and not real people. Yes I know the difference between fiction and reality. None of that is the point.
The point is that the way you talk about people is hurtful. That is an action you are doing that directly affects people in the real world.
Orcs are people. They talk like people, dress like people, think like people, and feel like people. They are a playable race. They are called people in the lore and the mechanics. Wizards reiterated their view of orcs as people, and their commitment to treat them as such in their Diversity statement from 2020. Suffice it to say, Orcs are people. As are Drow. As are Tieflings.
You see, this makes me think you are a super bad judge about what is or is not racist. Not only are you wrong about how Tieflings are people, but you miss the point about where the racism is. It's not that calling orcs people is racist, nor is drawing comparisons between how they are treated and how real life people are treated. The issue that people are complaining about is that the way orcs and drow and tieflings are treated in some setting directly mirrors treatment that real life people get because they look different and being confronted with that kind of thing in the default lore is hurtful and unnecessary. I don't think I'm a tiefling or a drow. But I don't like it when I'm slapped across the face with the kind of language that has been used to hurt me in real life. That's the point.
Playing a game does not excuse you from doing or saying things that hurt real people just because you're playing pretend.
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No, it is not. Speak for yourself, not the the whole player base.
WotC is currently learning the "lesson" that D&D is more popular than it ever was, and keeps gaining in popularity as they make it more palatable to more people. That includes the "current direction."
You do understand that folks are talking about the in-game reality for Turok, right?
For example, if Turok did evil stuff, Turok could be labelled as "evil," even though Turok is imaginary. Similarly, if Turok believed that all Halflings are inferior-trash-that-must-be-eliminated, Turok would be "racist," in the game world, despite all concerned being imaginary. Therefore:
Just like how some players may not feel comfortable roleplaying an evil character, some might not want to roleplay a racist character. Some might not want to be "in a party" with a racist character...after all, party cohesion is a thing. Some DMs might not be comfortable with characters like Turok running around being considered a "hero."
What are people's experiences with running tieflings in 5e? Has anyone ever actually had a game where their tiffle was a revilved societal outcast? I know I've actually tried once or twice, but modern DMs don't really seem to vibe on the idea and my tiffle characters have been more-or-less ordinary citizens even in worlds/settings where they ostensibly shouldn't have been. Curious whether anyone's ever actually played a tiffle character who had "shunned by society" as a serious and significant part of their character arc, and what they thought of that game.
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When you play a game, you play by its conventions. Comparing playing D&D to video game franchises like Civilization and Assassin's Creed is, I think, telling. Those are scripted experiences. You're limited by the game's engine. But not so with D&D. You're only limited by your imagination.
As Ophidimancer has pointed out, all these disparate races are people. Drow and orcs have their own culture, language and traditions. Tieflings may as well be an offshoot, like aasimar and genasi, that can come from anywhere. They're not monsters, and the game doesn't treat them as monsters. That may be a modern convention, but it's still the game's convention going forward. Your insistence otherwise, your refusal to tow the company line, isn't going to change that.
You're actively dehumanizing what the game, the official fiction, refers to as both people and humanoids. And if you can't see how other, real people won't be offended by that, then you're a lost cause.
My experiences with tieflings have been generally wonderful experiences where tieflings are an accepted part of society and are treated no differently than human, elves, dwarves, etc. I did once play a drow where the DM treated me like the social outcast, hated for existing but barely tolerated in society. It was such an unpleasant experience, I changed characters after a few sessions to a human PC to fit their human-centric campaign. I would not choose to play at a table where I am the target of bigotry again, be it as a drow or a tiefling.
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The last time I heard of this notion of "collective fantasy" was from that one MrRhexx (D&D Youtube influencer who's big on Forgotten Realms lore, especially older lore) video I watched where he basically talked about why he doesn't want ability score increases to be shifted to backgrounds from races.
My takeaway is that the collective fantasy is a myth. Races, like tieflings, orcs, and so on, are what the DM wants them to be in their world. And that world, whether it is homebrew or even a pre-written world, is going to be to the DM's tastes.