This is why I love D&D - the ability to draw on your own experiences and produce something fantastical you can share and build wits your other players. Quite looking forward to this one. 

I was hoping for the Radiant Citadel's societies to be more integrated with non-human species as a major, if not primary population, such as South African dwarves, Polynesian genasi, or Indian tabaxi, but I guess cultures beyond medieval castles will have to do.

To me this is still a far step below the imagination of cultures, of say, Stellaris, with avian, mammalian, reptilian, arthropod, fungoid, plantoid, lithoid, machine, -type aliens that make societies that proliferate at a planetary scale. I've always wanted a more species-inclusive material world setting that isn't always under the thumb of specifically humans as the dominate species by population numbers or spotlight of human-based societies.

Even settings with diverse species lore like Eberron give them the most Dragonmarks, and are central to founding the Five Nations so focused on, but at least they feel like they are one of many versus being the dominate force.

Then there is of course all the half-humans, rather than half-any other species, as if humans alone mate with everything and they all just happen to be genetically compatible. Need more elf aasimars and orc tieflings. Wildemount's Uthodurn at least shows a bit with potential elf-dwarves in the future. The Kryn Dynasty is a great example of a non-human take too.

I was hoping for such potential to be unleashed in the Radiant Citadel, and while I'm glad other human cultures are getting a spotlight, I can't help but feel an opportunity was lost. Even the Spelljammer mix of races feels more like a gimmick than a genuine attempt at building an alien society with the same depth as Waterdeep.

Everything sounds so vibrant. I look forward to reading them and seeing what I can borrow and use for campaigns!

Quote from TheWheatOne >>

I was hoping for the Radiant Citadel's societies to be more integrated with non-human species as a major, if not primary population, such as South African dwarves, Polynesian genasi, or Indian tabaxi, but I guess cultures beyond medieval castles will have to do.

To me this is still a far step below the imagination of cultures, of say, Stellaris, with avian, mammalian, reptilian, arthropod, fungoid, plantoid, lithoid, machine, -type aliens that make societies that proliferate at a planetary scale. I've always wanted a more species-inclusive material world setting that isn't always under the thumb of specifically humans as the dominate species by population numbers or spotlight of human-based societies.

Even settings with diverse species lore like Eberron give them the most Dragonmarks, and are central to founding the Five Nations so focused on, but at least they feel like they are one of many versus being the dominate force.

Then there is of course all the half-humans, rather than half-any other species, as if humans alone mate with everything and they all just happen to be genetically compatible. Need more elf aasimars and orc tieflings. Wildemount's Uthodurn at least shows a bit with potential elf-dwarves in the future. The Kryn Dynasty is a great example of a non-human take too.

I was hoping for such potential to be unleashed in the Radiant Citadel, and while I'm glad other human cultures are getting a spotlight, I can't help but feel an opportunity was lost. Even the Spelljammer mix of races feels more like a gimmick than a genuine attempt at building an alien society with the same depth as Waterdeep.

 I get what you mean, but think how controversial that would be. Only populations based on Europeans are human, but all Indians are tabaxi? All South Africans are dwarves? 

Based off these personal interviews, I'm very super excited for the release. When your fans are looking forward to diving into each of these author's worlds more-so than the adventures, that's how you know you've gotten some great world-building done. I'm curious to see if any of these new places become further expanded on or referenced in future books. 

Would these places be reachable via flying spelljammers, casting the "Dream of the Blue Veil" spell, or simply by hiking past the impassible mountains in your own settings to what lies hidden beyond? The possibilities are endless!

Quote from Darwin_the_Pirate >>

 I get what you mean, but think how controversial that would be. Only populations based on Europeans are human, but all Indians are tabaxi? All South Africans are dwarves? 

 Controversial? What's controversial is humans continuing to dominate societies on a multiversal scale. I never said all of such societies would consist of a single race, rather they are a major part of it. The dwarves and elves of Uthodurn are a good example. Heck, make a "european" culture based only on dwarves or elves or whatever. Totally fine with me. Humans can still be seen as especially adaptable, perhaps being semi-consistently a 1/3 to 2/3rds of a total population. But always the dominate? In every canonical culture connected to the Citadel? Imagine in real life the same one ethnicity constantly dominating all cultures that we come across in traveling to other material worlds or multiverses. The implications are sad.

Quote from Darwin_the_Pirate >>

Quote from TheWheatOne >>

I was hoping for the Radiant Citadel's societies to be more integrated with non-human species as a major, if not primary population, such as South African dwarves, Polynesian genasi, or Indian tabaxi, but I guess cultures beyond medieval castles will have to do

 I get what you mean, but think how controversial that would be. Only populations based on Europeans are human, but all Indians are tabaxi? All South Africans are dwarves? 

 Yeah, it is fraught. You have to plug and play those sort of details to suit your own campaign. D&D official material is moving away from canons (all the radiant citadel cultures Must be human) to modular resources.

Quote from TheWheatOne >>

Quote from Darwin_the_Pirate >>

 I get what you mean, but think how controversial that would be. Only populations based on Europeans are human, but all Indians are tabaxi? All South Africans are dwarves? 

 Controversial? What's controversial is humans continuing to dominate societies on a multiversal scale. I never said all of such societies would consist of a single race, rather they are a major part of it. The dwarves and elves of Uthodurn are a good example. Heck, make a "european" culture based only on dwarves or elves or whatever. Totally fine with me. Humans can still be seen as especially adaptable, perhaps being semi-consistently a 1/3 to 2/3rds of a total population. But always the dominate? In every canonical culture connected to the Citadel? Imagine in real life the same one ethnicity constantly dominating all cultures that we come across in traveling to other material worlds or multiverses. The implications are sad.

 Yeah, here's the thing mate.

There are no actual orcs to get offended they're not the majority.
There are actual human polynesians who would possibly be offended at their culture being showcased primarily as non-human entities.

Yeah, I'm certain you'd be fine with a "European culture" being made up of dwarves or whatever, but there's TONS of media that has european culture as actual humans.
There's not TONS of media that has polynesians in it.

Plus, there's not al ong history of european cultures being depicted as non-human being used to enforce the idea that europeans are non-human like there is with a lot of other cultures.

This isn't even a modern "millenial" reading thing, this is a thing that's been discussed since at least "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad which was published in 1972.

Quote from Samedi_of_Orleans >>

 Yeah, here's the thing mate.

There are no actual orcs to get offended they're not the majority.
There are actual human polynesians who would possibly be offended at their culture being showcased primarily as non-human entities.

Yeah, I'm certain you'd be fine with a "European culture" being made up of dwarves or whatever, but there's TONS of media that has european culture as actual humans.
There's not TONS of media that has polynesians in it.

Plus, there's not al ong history of european cultures being depicted as non-human being used to enforce the idea that europeans are non-human like there is with a lot of other cultures.

This isn't even a modern "millenial" reading thing, this is a thing that's been discussed since at least "The Iron Dream" by Norman Spinrad which was published in 1972.

 
Obviously there are no orcs to get offended irl (ignoring the possibility of identifying as one), but the implication is there, hence a large reason VGtM and MToF were discontinued, of the evil portrayals and racial stereotypes, of why races such as orcs and goblinoids were diversified in open cultural outlook. That non-European societies all have to be of the pure human race untainted by the influence of other races, or they will be offended, just screams this really weird ethnic nationalism universal across worlds, yet apparently only European-type societies are enlightened enough to have significant populations of other species integrated into their cultures.

Obviously yes, it would be considered by most to be acceptable to put fantasy humans first. Non-humans are thrown down in priority as novelties, tokens, or if the whole party is composed of them, a zoo, rather than seeing them as people integrated in societies and cultures that are equal in worth and spotlight. My offense at this stance is the minority, so it can obviously be ignored, but the hit of dismissiveness towards it does feel personal. I'm multiracial, with no real home ethnic identity to speak of, and I always loved the diversity of biology in fantasy species in addition to culture, so to me I'm trying to find a home with similar biological people around me, even if just in a fantasy RPG.

I was hoping the new default lore of the Radiant Citadel's 15 new canon societies, at least 1 or 2 could also push other races into the spotlight. You know, like how its own description says of racial integration, instead of me constantly having to appeal to DMs to homebrew significant sections of an existing society to integrate whatever non-human race I pick (or worse, ask them to build a new one entirely or accept the one I make).

If they decline I'm instead just that exotic race snickered at, or at best, seen as a novelty token to earn them tolerance points. Think of the goblin councilor Skysybil Abrianna Mirimm in the Kryn Dynasty influenced mostly by drow enlightening the monster races who all but her have no governing positions in the Bright Queen's Court. That's me when I pick a dragonborn noble of Baldur's Gate, or a tortle priest in Theros. I buy these modules and sourcebooks to minimize the need for such worldbuilding homebrew to make my characters not feel superweird or as outsiders. "Nope, 15 human-dominate societies for you though! Don't worry, we left 12 open slots for homebrew!"

These issues are rationalized away of other groups being more important to keep their ethnic nationalism not offended, as if their cultures cannot have others with them, you know like the Phillipines or India or Egypt or Indonesia or Brazil, they all had ethnic unity! Given my lack of power, I'd agree to accept WotC making just one canon european society that puts other races on an equal footing in terms of lore spotlight and governing influence. Perhaps this society would have Nordic elves, European harengons, Polish halflings, Scottish dwarves, Spanish shifters, in some Sharn-type diverse city in a Clovis Concord-type nation. They'd see most other human-dominate societies as invasive and xenophobic, beyond humans using other species for exotic mating statues. I'd probably laugh heartily at that.

No, that's asking too much. So perhaps just a Celtic society of 2/3rds human, 1/3rd roughly of dwarves, where dwarves are actually given high statues in government over time due to their long lives. Perhaps they even have their dwarf version of King Arthur? Is that still too much to ask as canon in the Radiant Citadel, given the same depth as other civilizations shown connected to it? Probably yes, that is too much. The reasoning would be something like "We already have too many European cultures". And I'd be like, "But you won't allow such racial depth and diversity in other irl cultures either." And WotC would be like, "Homebrew." "You could literally say that for every single fault or argument, including monster races being evil or humans being eurocentric." "I know, great right?"

Ngl, I get more excited for this adventure the closer it gets to actually being in my hands. 

It is such a breath of fresh air to finally get more official Korean content. I'm excited for all of these but Yeonido the most!

Dude, I'm Polish and why the f... would you make us halflings? :D 

No, unless you homebrew, humans are the basic race in all player-centric societies, because they are so diverse, and because most players want to play them. So you think it would be better for a Korean player to hear from their DM "listen, I've got this great setting from Wizards, based on medieval Korea! But you know, you should play a goblin, because the main group in this society (again, based on Korea), are goblins! Sure, you can be a human, but you will be an outsider. 

I was just giving casual examples. Polish could be any species, or mix of species. You're selectively ignoring context, which showed why I choose cultures like polish, given apparently european cultures were the only ones acceptable to have non-humans included in their cultures.

If you read my comments you'd know humans could still be a main group in any society and culture. I said nothing about excluding them. My concerns involve always making non-humans outsiders when they don't have to be, not this weird black and white (its either humans or not humans at all for the population) results you have going on, as if it absolutely must be goblins and not humans, when I never said such a thing, merely that other races be majorly included in the culture. But apparently to you, races can't be diverse unlike humans? That WotC must ignore the majority players to only target the majority, and when the the option to include both minority with majority players, they must specifically ignore the minority? That is what you want?! Do you not understand that by that logic WotC would have always focused on their original demographics? No Korean focus in the first place.

But even if they were outsiders, good! Nice to have a diverse change of pace for once (out of 15 societies), given I've been forced to do it when working in canon, for almost all societies involving non-humans, including now, the supposedly racial integrated Radiant Citadel that features nothing but human-based societies. Imagine that, a fleshed out community where humans are the outsiders.

Quote from TheWheatOne >>

You're selectively ignoring context . . . 
 

Here’s the thing - your each and every post is reliant on ignoring context - specifically the context of the book’s purpose and D&D’s greater history. 

This is a book about celebrating humanity in all its facets and a recognition that early D&D was quite racist in its portrayals of non-European human cultures, and, even after liberating the game from Gygax’s problematic views, Wizards has never really explored the much-neglected space of other human cultures.

Would it be neat to see support for a world where humans are not the dominant race?  Yes.  Is a book that is a love letter to both humanity and D&D’s minority fans who stuck with the game even when the game did not stick with them the right place to explore a non-human world? Obviously not.

It is as you said - context matters.

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

Quote from TheWheatOne >>

You're selectively ignoring context . . . 
 

Here’s the thing - your each and every post is reliant on ignoring context - specifically the context of the book’s purpose and D&D’s greater history. 

This is a book about celebrating humanity in all its facets and a recognition that early D&D was quite racist in its portrayals of non-European human cultures, and, even after liberating the game from Gygax’s problematic views, Wizards has never really explored the much-neglected space of other human cultures.

Would it be neat to see support for a world where humans are not the dominant race?  Yes.  Is a book that is a love letter to both humanity and D&D’s minority fans who stuck with the game even when the game did not stick with them the right place to explore a non-human world? Obviously not.

It is as you said - context matters.

 I absolutely love your answer 🫀🙏

And you are missing the point. I'm Polish, and I don't want a fantasy setting based on my culture be halflings, or orcs, or dwarves. Almost every fantasy race has some negative connotation with it (elves are pompous, dwarves are brash, halflings are... well, kinda lame). 
I'm absolutely ok with there being a mixture of fantasy races in the pseudo-Polish society. But it should remain a predominately human society. I think most people will feel the same about their heritage. 

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

Here’s the thing - your each and every post is reliant on ignoring context - specifically the context of the book’s purpose and D&D’s greater history.

This is a book about celebrating humanity in all its facets and a recognition that early D&D was quite racist in its portrayals of non-European human cultures, and, even after liberating the game from Gygax’s problematic views, Wizards has never really explored the much-neglected space of other human cultures.

Would it be neat to see support for a world where humans are not the dominant race?  Yes.  Is a book that is a love letter to both humanity and D&D’s minority fans who stuck with the game even when the game did not stick with them the right place to explore a non-human world? Obviously not.

It is as you said - context matters.

Its reversed. My each and every post definitely focused on context, while others ignored selective parts or twisted my words. The whole point of the book, including the Radient Citadel's description of racial integration, is simply false, given it put ethnically purified societies in focus, while omitting integration of other peoples within those societies. This includes irl societies that had heavy ethnic diversity,  such as India, Indonesia, much of South America, or all the -stans of Central Asia, yet showed no fantasy equal in species, just all humans with the occasional novelties.  How easy would it have been to introduce, as part of their community, firbolgs who talked to determine the health of farm plants, or tabaxi who are good at some sport of speed, or aarakocra providing a mail service across a mountain range, all into the culture of some society. They need not impose some sort of offense at being there, rather they just are, and everyone enjoys them for it, for adding more color, or perhaps such tensions could be a story of their society all on its own, such as irl with koreans in japan, hispanics mixing with native americans. Its even worse when you realize these societies supposedly intermingled with the Radient Citadel as a transportation of different ideals mixed together and sent back out to those societies.

The problematic views of eurocentric homogenized xenophobic cultures, is only increased by focusing on national ethnic pride and purity, rather than an interconnected world beyond of what the Radient Citadel was supposed to represent in xenophile ideals, of embracing differences, of living to others different from you biologically, yet still sharing culture. If anything it intentionally ignores such diversity of how in irl, such cultures co-mingled, both from inner mixings, such as africans and arabs, to external trades such as the depth of the silk road in connecting a continent (which I hoped to see in the Citadel in part transforming the cultures they connected to).

It doesn't even throw a bone to its own description. Its all specifically human dominated, rather than focusing most on it with a sprinkling of other races' own cultures.

Quote from TheWheatOne >>

Quote from Caerwyn_Glyndwr >>

Here’s the thing - your each and every post is reliant on ignoring context - specifically the context of the book’s purpose and D&D’s greater history.

This is a book about celebrating humanity in all its facets and a recognition that early D&D was quite racist in its portrayals of non-European human cultures, and, even after liberating the game from Gygax’s problematic views, Wizards has never really explored the much-neglected space of other human cultures.

Would it be neat to see support for a world where humans are not the dominant race?  Yes.  Is a book that is a love letter to both humanity and D&D’s minority fans who stuck with the game even when the game did not stick with them the right place to explore a non-human world? Obviously not.

It is as you said - context matters.

Its reversed. My each and every post definitely focused on context, while others ignored selective parts or twisted my words. The whole point of the book, including the Radient Citadel's description of racial integration, is simply false, given it put ethnically purified societies in focus, while omitting integration of other peoples within those societies. This includes irl societies that had heavy ethnic diversity,  such as India, Indonesia, much of South America, or all the -stans of Central Asia, yet showed no fantasy equal in species, just all humans with the occasional novelties.  How easy would it have been to introduce, as part of their community, firbolgs who talked to determine the health of farm plants, or tabaxi who are good at some sport of speed, or aarakocra providing a mail service across a mountain range, all into the culture of some society. They need not impose some sort of offense at being there, rather they just are, and everyone enjoys them for it, for adding more color, or perhaps such tensions could be a story of their society all on its own, such as irl with koreans in japan, hispanics mixing with native americans. Its even worse when you realize these societies supposedly intermingled with the Radient Citadel as a transportation of different ideals mixed together and sent back out to those societies.

The problematic views of eurocentric homogenized xenophobic cultures, is only increased by focusing on national ethnic pride and purity, rather than an interconnected world beyond of what the Radient Citadel was supposed to represent in xenophile ideals, of embracing differences, of living to others different from you biologically, yet still sharing culture. If anything it intentionally ignores such diversity of how in irl, such cultures co-mingled, both from inner mixings, such as africans and arabs, to external trades such as the depth of the silk road in connecting a continent (which I hoped to see in the Citadel in part transforming the cultures they connected to).

It doesn't even throw a bone to its own description. Its all specifically human dominated, rather than focusing most on it with a sprinkling of other races' own cultures.

 
Here is your problem - you work on assumptions, not actual facts, and prefer to respond to those assumptions.  Let us take, for example, what I said about European homogenisation.  I did not actually say that the homogenisation is a problem - there is nothing wrong with having settings that are based only in Europe.  What I did say was a problem was when Wizards overly focused only on European settings, particularly when D&D’s historic views on other human cultures (such as travellers in the European setting or other cultures living at the fringe of the setting) have been outright racist.

This book is setting out to make worlds based on the experiences of non-European authors - worlds that asked “if someone made a traditional D&D world based on something other than Gygax’s poor understanding of history, what would that world have looked like?”  The book never said it was trying to set forth a bunch of worlds that are internally diverse - it said it was making a diverse set of worlds, all connected together with the melting pot that will be the Radiant Citadel itself. Therein lies another assumption you made -  you are trying to argue that diverse worlds means lack of inclusion, when the book literally is built around a central hub.  Wizards has made it fairly apparent that a major message of this book is going to be “look how different all these worlds are, but how they still come together when they meet at the Citadel.”  Which, takes the wind out of your “but showing different worlds based on different cultures does not promote inclusion” argument, itself based on an unsupported (and frankly contradicted) assumption that by including diverse worlds they would be ignoring inclusivity.

Let’s also recall that these settings are works of love and soul from their authors - they are a celebration of each author’s culture, experiences, love of D&D, and love of humanity itself.  Your posts are just dripping with I-know-better-than-thou as you try and dismiss the authors’ visions  of their experiences and their own culture as “simply wrong.”  They reek of the very “I, an outsider to your culture (which you are - the book is so diverse that you are all but certain to be an outsider to at least a few of its authors’ perspectives, if not all of them), know enough to write about your experiences on your behalf” which led to the problematic worldbuilding of other human cultures in early D&D editions (continuing even in 5e, such as with its Romani depiction) which this book is trying to address. 

In your example I didn't assume. Another poster specifically cared about homogenisation of non-european cultures, which is what I was referring to in my euro-diverse example.

"Here is your problem - you work on assumptions, not actual facts." Never did I argue that diverse worlds means lack of inclusion. What I did argue was that it is mono-racial with humans always at the forefront, to the point that even in culturally diverse worlds, not even 1 of those 15 had significant racially diverse spotlights or integrations within their cultures. These worlds are diverse, from a cultural perspective. Lack of inclusion of other sapient species, in a D&D multiverse of dozens of them, definitely makes it more flat though.

Even more so you assume that I dismiss the authors of those worlds. When did I say that? It is fine on an individual level to have a human-centered setting, or any other theme or set of standards and so on, given whatever they aim to do. I had no problem with the cultures themselves, nor the authors individually.

What is not fine, from an overall perspective, is to say that the Radiant Citadel is racially diverse when on a macro society level, its all focused on one race.

The new book looks great; the adventures are greatly varied. New content is always appreciated. (I own every digital product available via D&D Beyond.) I'm looking very forward to using this for my players. The idea to drop this in along our typical campaign is very appealing. The flexibility is terrific!

 However, please STOP preaching to us about diversity, "cultural appropriation", stereotypes, etc. We get enough of that in every part of life nowadays (i.e. politics, news, schools & universities, tech blogs, etc.) 

This is a paid product...we know how to use it without your moral guidance or cultural direction. So tired of being preached to by companies with an assumption that I'm a child who requires such tutelage. Treat everyone the same regardless of...anything.

As a typical (average) citizen of the word...I got it already.