“Gary Gygax was a racist.  To anyone who is not a racist themselves, there is no real question about that.  Gygax went out of his way to add themes of racism to the game itself and used words like "race" within the context of the game to infect the game's core mechanics with his racism.”

Could you develop that claim a bit more strongly rather than just call Gygax a “racist”?

I mean, could you offer specific examples where he claimed one race was inherently better than another?  Is your claim rooted in the fact that Gygax’ world included humanoids such as lizard men who were at a lower tech level?

Quote from Wren_the_Munificent >>

“Gary Gygax was a racist.  To anyone who is not a racist themselves, there is no real question about that.  Gygax went out of his way to add themes of racism to the game itself and used words like "race" within the context of the game to infect the game's core mechanics with his racism.”

Could you develop that claim a bit more strongly rather than just call Gygax a “racist”?

I mean, could you offer specific examples where he claimed one race was inherently better than another?  Is your claim rooted in the fact that Gygax’ world included humanoids such as lizard men who were at a lower tech level?

 Let's see - he actively said he supported the discredited and racist theory of eugenics.... decades after it was shown to be bad science. He talked about how he thought tribal cultures were inherently inferior to Europeans... then based multiple races within D&D on racist tribal stereotypes and intentionally made them less intelligent and more evil than the European-styled creatures.  He once quoted a military officer ordering a real-world genocide to justify why it was acceptable for "Lawful Good" characters to kill women and children--as long as they were from an inferior (read "tribal-based") race like orcs.  He includes stat blocks for orc women and children specifically so the rules could support players having an old fashioned genocide.

One could go on and on.  And that is only the racist elements - he also was a self-styled sexist who believed women "ruined" games and were "biologically incapable of enjoying D&D."

The man helped come up with some great mechanics - but he was a horrible, horrible human being. 

I don't see much point in endlessly exhuming Gygax and relitigating his fraught history. I'd rather focus on what WotC is doing with the game today, and the reasons for their changes are spelled out quite well in Davyd's post without needing to reference any specific real-world person.

Quote from PsyrenXY >>

I don't see much point in endlessly exhuming Gygax and relitigating his fraught history. I'd rather focus on what WotC is doing with the game today, and the reasons for their changes are spelled out quite well in Davyd's post without needing to reference any specific real-world person.

 

The unfortunate reality, however, is that you cannot ignore what Gygax did to this game.  All of those things Davyd mentioned were intentional insertions for the explicit purpose of promoting one racist's believe in "biological determinism."  Understanding that the problematic elements of the game are not only problematic - they were intentionally intended to be problematic is a reality one simply cannot ignore.

There are lots of people who think "these changes are dumb - Wizards is trying to find racism where none existed" - so long as people believe that, it is an unfortunate necessity of these conversations to point out that "actually, racism did exist in these elements - it was intentionally created to be racist by a well-known bigot."

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

Quote from Wren_the_Munificent >>

“Gary Gygax was a racist.  To anyone who is not a racist themselves, there is no real question about that.  Gygax went out of his way to add themes of racism to the game itself and used words like "race" within the context of the game to infect the game's core mechanics with his racism.”

Could you develop that claim a bit more strongly rather than just call Gygax a “racist”?

I mean, could you offer specific examples where he claimed one race was inherently better than another?  Is your claim rooted in the fact that Gygax’ world included humanoids such as lizard men who were at a lower tech level?

 

 Let's see - he actively said he supported the discredited and racist theory of eugenics.... decades after it was shown to be bad science. He talked about how he thought tribal cultures were inherently inferior to Europeans... then based multiple races within D&D on racist tribal stereotypes and intentionally made them less intelligent and more evil than the European-styled creatures.  He once quoted a military officer ordering a real-world genocide to justify why it was acceptable for "Lawful Good" characters to kill women and children--as long as they were from an inferior (read "tribal-based") race like orcs.  He includes stat blocks for orc women and children specifically so the rules could support players having an old fashioned genocide.

One could go on and on.  And that is only the racist elements - he also was a self-styled sexist who believed women "ruined" games and were "biologically incapable of enjoying D&D."

 

 All of that is news to me and I will be searching for hard evidence that he did those things.  I was hoping that you might have some of that.

I am going to say we not revive discussion of the racist nature of some of Gygax's beliefs given the fact it's not relevant to the decisions being made today, with D&D in the present.

I totally understand why you think that context is relevant Caerwyn, but we can still discuss the necessity/benefits of the changes without it.

Thank you to Davyd for closing the door on that line of discussion.

The term species doesn’t really bother me at this point. It is a player term and game term. It is not an in-game term. Just like having a bonus action feature, in game the tiefling monk, in character, isn’t shouting to the other characters “I’m going to use my bonus action to stun this goblin so everyone gang up on it”. The tiefling monk has no clue what a bonus action is, they just punch (or other unarmed strike). 

And guess what, at your table use whatever term you want