In order to stay in line, my half Chinese designer friend is renaming the half-dryads in her upcoming setting/adventure. Even though she's a bit discombobulated at her existence being declared racist.

The weird thing is, on Tuesday I was watching a half elf and a tiefling as two of the heroes in the DnD movie. Now the half elf at least is being banned from the ONE DnD core.

Quote from: S'mon on April 07, 2023, 02:51:32 PMThe weird thing is, on Tuesday I was watching a half elf and a tiefling as two of the heroes in the DnD movie. Now the half elf at least is being banned from the ONE DnD core.

Hey, at least that tiefling can still be a hero! 

That half-elf mutt shoulda been more demonic, though. 

Quote from: S'mon on April 07, 2023, 02:51:32 PM
In order to stay in line, my half Chinese designer friend is renaming the half-dryads in her upcoming setting/adventure. Even though she's a bit discombobulated at her existence being declared racist.

The weird thing is, on Tuesday I was watching a half elf and a tiefling as two of the heroes in the DnD movie. Now the half elf at least is being banned from the ONE DnD core.

I read a page a while ago that made all dryads into half-hamadryads. A hamadryad here is your typical D&D dryad. Bonded to a tree and everything. A regular dryad is the daughter of a dryad and a mortal man. Adventurer material, basically. She isn't bound to a tree, but if she bonds to one then her lifespan is extended to the tree's.

Removing half races from the game on these grounds just seems like really poor logic and not especially good ethical thinking either if that is aim. I don't see anything inherently wrong with a half race in the game. First races are not really reflective of real world ones, but even if something like a half elf or half orc occasionally carries some of that "I was born in two worlds trope", the trope itself is fine, and increases empathy (it isn't working to thwart it). So I just don't understand the position they are taking here.

Also just from a game design standpoint, all the solutions I am seeing offered either unnecessarily convolute character creation, tack something like being half elven onto another mechanic in the game that doesn't seem like a natural fit (it feels very kludgy) or waters down the concept so there is no real mechanical weight to being half elven.

I do get some of the arguments about half races around things like "if there are half elves, why no half gnomes?" but I think the reasoning there is just simplicity, demand, making the character choices manageable for the designers to balance out and give clear roles to, etc. Plus that sort of elaboration can be house ruled in if people are dying to play a half gnome or some mixture that doesn't include a human parent.

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on April 08, 2023, 01:32:45 PM
Removing half races from the game on these grounds just seems like really poor logic and not especially good ethical thinking either if that is aim. I don't see anything inherently wrong with a half race in the game. First races are not really reflective of real world ones, but even if something like a half elf or half orc occasionally carries some of that "I was born in two worlds trope", the trope itself is fine, and increases empathy (it isn't working to thwart it). So I just don't understand the position they are taking here.

Also just from a game design standpoint, all the solutions I am seeing offered either unnecessarily convolute character creation, tack something like being half elven onto another mechanic in the game that doesn't seem like a natural fit (it feels very kludgy) or waters down the concept so there is no real mechanical weight to being half elven.

I do get some of the arguments about half races around things like "if there are half elves, why no half gnomes?" but I think the reasoning there is just simplicity, demand, making the character choices manageable for the designers to balance out and give clear roles to, etc. Plus that sort of elaboration can be house ruled in if people are dying to play a half gnome or some mixture that doesn't include a human parent.

Because divide and conquer, they want everybody to have a racial awakening and to segregate. Since they believe that monkey sees, monkey does they need to remove everything that works against their enlightened plan to stop racism by creating more racism.

As for the game mechanics part, yes, I have said something similar upthread.

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on April 08, 2023, 01:32:45 PM
Removing half races from the game on these grounds just seems like really poor logic and not especially good ethical thinking either if that is aim. I don't see anything inherently wrong with a half race in the game. First races are not really reflective of real world ones, but even if something like a half elf or half orc occasionally carries some of that "I was born in two worlds trope", the trope itself is fine, and increases empathy (it isn't working to thwart it). So I just don't understand the position they are taking here.

The problem with the "I was born of two worlds" trope is that it connotations of real-world mixed-race people. For a corporation like Hasbro, they don't want real-world race connotations, even if it is positive -- because having such messaging opens up debate and discussion. You can see this in responses here, where Hasbro/WotC is likened to the KKK opposing miscegenation.

From a corporate point of view, having messaging about real-world races opens them up for liability.

I agree that it isn't good ethical thinking.

Quote from: jhkim on April 09, 2023, 11:25:47 AM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on April 08, 2023, 01:32:45 PM
Removing half races from the game on these grounds just seems like really poor logic and not especially good ethical thinking either if that is aim. I don't see anything inherently wrong with a half race in the game. First races are not really reflective of real world ones, but even if something like a half elf or half orc occasionally carries some of that "I was born in two worlds trope", the trope itself is fine, and increases empathy (it isn't working to thwart it). So I just don't understand the position they are taking here.

The problem with the "I was born of two worlds" trope is that it connotations of real-world mixed-race people. For a corporation like Hasbro, they don't want real-world race connotations, even if it is positive -- because having such messaging opens up debate and discussion. You can see this in responses here, where Hasbro/WotC is likened to the KKK opposing miscegenation.

From a corporate point of view, having messaging about real-world races opens them up for liability.

I agree that it isn't good ethical thinking.

Well duh! We're humans, we only know the human experience and can only draw from and relate to the human experience.

What's the "message? I haven't seen Grand Wizards of the KKKoast endorsing discrimination in it's books (IRL I have).

This is the same idiocy as not having slavers as the bad guys because IRL slavery. Who ARE you protecting by this? IMHO the current year IRL slavers.

D&D doesn't have and never has had, "messaging about real-world races" (Prove me wrong, I dare you). Ergo they aren't open to liability.

It's not only bad ethical thinking, it's unethical bordering on evil: The "fish out of water", "born of two worlds" tropes among others are just a way to insert conflict, since the books have NEVER stated that one or the other side of said conflict is correct, much less we should follow that side's logic IRL arguing against the inclusion of such tropes is STUPID or EVIL, because it prevents dealing with such conflicts in an imaginary world where the results will be only real to figments of the imagination.

Quote from: jhkim on April 09, 2023, 11:25:47 AM

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on April 08, 2023, 01:32:45 PM
Removing half races from the game on these grounds just seems like really poor logic and not especially good ethical thinking either if that is aim. I don't see anything inherently wrong with a half race in the game. First races are not really reflective of real world ones, but even if something like a half elf or half orc occasionally carries some of that "I was born in two worlds trope", the trope itself is fine, and increases empathy (it isn't working to thwart it). So I just don't understand the position they are taking here.

The problem with the "I was born of two worlds" trope is that it connotations of real-world mixed-race people. For a corporation like Hasbro, they don't want real-world race connotations, even if it is positive -- because having such messaging opens up debate and discussion. You can see this in responses here, where Hasbro/WotC is likened to the KKK opposing miscegenation.

I understand the cooperate concern. I just don't think it is a good way to design D&D or RPGs in general. I think the problem with it though is it leads to less interesting content and fewer tropes that resonate with people, over people getting upset online. Maybe I am overly optimistic, but I think a lot of these controversies go away (on both sides of the political aisle) if they just stop responding to them or if they simply ignore them. There is a protracted discussion about this elsewhere online and it is quickly becoming clear pretty much every avenue they can pursue as a solution to the perceived problem is going to trigger a controversy with some amount of people.

QuoteFrom a corporate point of view, having messaging about real-world races opens them up for liability.

I really don't see them suffering legal consequences for having half elves in the game. If people want to read real world messaging they can. And obviously there could be some amount of real world borrowing or subtext in a given edition (that is different from messaging). But I would be stunned if they were successfully sued by someone on these grounds (and I think it would be a death blow for creative expression in this country if it succeeded).

Quote
I agree that it isn't good ethical thinking.

It definitely seems like shaky ethical thinking to me for sure

Quote from: jhkim on April 09, 2023, 11:25:47 AM
The problem with the "I was born of two worlds" trope is that it connotations of real-world mixed-race people. For a corporation like Hasbro, they don't want real-world race connotations, even if it is positive -- because having such messaging opens up debate and discussion. You can see this in responses here, where Hasbro/WotC is likened to the KKK opposing miscegenation.

From a corporate point of view, having messaging about real-world races opens them up for liability.

I agree that it isn't good ethical thinking.

Why?  Because they are listening to the vocal minority who the majority of doesn't even play D&D.   So it's better to turn off the players who are actually playing D&D and who are actually buying the books?

Quote from: GhostNinja on April 09, 2023, 06:09:08 PM
who are actually buying the books?

Good question.

Quote from: mightybrain on April 09, 2023, 06:48:54 PM

Quote from: GhostNinja on April 09, 2023, 06:09:08 PM
who are actually buying the books?

Good question.

They can keep shooting themselves in the foot.  I am running an ongoing D&D 5e game and I won't buy any WOTC books going forward.  Third party products, Absolutly but not from WOTC.  Hope it's worth it to make less money.

I found the following two rules that dominate most tabletop players:

A: Don't learn new rules if you can help it. If you have too, have them be as similar as possible to what came before.
B: Follow the hype. Nostalgia, familiarity, and mass appeal take priority over any kind of good design sense.

This explains why D&D remains any kind of market leader. Same deal for MTG, and same deal for W40K. Most game groups would rather chew both their arms off then learn a new system. My friend is currently playing a fucking Naruto 5e game. He says it sucks and is a terrible fit, yet everybody sticks with it out of habit, like a TV show on its 6th season.

Right now as long as 5e boils the pot slowly and doesn't try any more outragous stunts, everybody continues to play it. As a giant Study by the EU showed, piracy for games doesn't actually hurt sales and mostly acts as free publicity.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 09, 2023, 12:13:44 PM
Well duh! We're humans, we only know the human experience and can only draw from and relate to the human experience.

While that's true, I see people on both sides only using that argument selectively.

"Half-races are (very loosely) reflective of the experiences of mixed race human beings because we still live in unenlightened times where mixed race people feel like perpetual foreigners in their country of birth."

"Orcs are the Other and therefore racist because the Other is a racist construct. They're racist against [insert any human group here, like Celts, Mongols, Algonquin, or Zulu, depending on which the current depiction is coded most closely to]."

Although if we stop to think about it, the reasons these things exist isn't about fostering racist attitudes.

Half-races are used because they're superficially cool in the "angsty teenager whose parents don't understand him" sense so it fosters empathy. Alienation is a universal human experience.

Orcs (or other humanoids) are used as a matter of game convention because you need guilt-free targets for whatever reason. If we used humans, then we'd start wondering whether we're the bad guys for breaking into their homes, killing them and stealing everything that isn't nailed down. Even human bandits have or had families, and it takes a fair amount of indoctrination and propaganda to overcome that empathy. Whereas building empathy simply requires empathizing a person's basic humanity (e.g. suffering, spirituality, art, etc).

Also, Tolkien did it first. Monkey see, monkey do. That probably has like 99% to do with it.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on April 10, 2023, 01:21:41 AM
I found the following two rules that dominate most tabletop players:

A: Don't learn new rules if you can help it. If you have too, have them be as similar as possible to what came before.
B: Follow the hype. Nostalgia, familiarity, and mass appeal take priority over any kind of good design sense.

This explains why D&D remains any kind of market leader. Same deal for MTG, and same deal for W40K. Most game groups would rather chew both their arms off then learn a new system. My friend is currently playing a fucking Naruto 5e game. He says it sucks and is a terrible fit, yet everybody sticks with it out of habit, like a TV show on its 6th season.

Yeah, that's effing stupid. I find it incredibly frustrating. I suspect a key part of the problem is that these rules are often extremely complicated, which creates sunk cost fallacy.

With video games like crpgs, there's trends but there aren't really any universal mechanics. Gamers don't have a choice because crpgs don't have infinite content, so they play new games regardless of precise mechanics. The game does most of the actual work for you and plays very quickly. In ttrpgs a single fight could take several sessions, whereas in a crpg it could take a few minutes at most.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 10, 2023, 09:42:41 AMI find it incredibly frustrating. I suspect a key part of the problem is that these rules are often extremely complicated, which creates sunk cost fallacy.

Possibly, but I also suspect that something like 30% of all TTRPG players aren't there for the mechanics but for the idea of imagination fighting (and 40% are just there to chill). Mechanics are something they put up with to engage with the idea at all.

Its the niche crowd that even cares about the idea of mechanics or refining their core experience, or homebrewing or experimentation. D&D is like 70% of the market? Again checks out.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on April 10, 2023, 12:53:11 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on April 10, 2023, 09:42:41 AMI find it incredibly frustrating. I suspect a key part of the problem is that these rules are often extremely complicated, which creates sunk cost fallacy.

Possibly, but I also suspect that something like 30% of all TTRPG players aren't there for the mechanics but for the idea of imagination fighting (and 40% are just there to chill). Mechanics are something they put up with to engage with the idea at all.

Its the niche crowd that even cares about the idea of mechanics or refining their core experience, or homebrewing or experimentation. D&D is like 70% of the market? Again checks out.

What is even the point then? People don't play board games for the idea of playing a board game: they play the damn game because of the experience created by the mechanics.

People play video games for the gameplay more than anything else. That's why Bejeweled clones are so popular on mobile devices. Your video game could have the stupidest story, or no story at all, but as long as the core gameplay loop is fun addictive then players won't give a flying fuck about the writing.

Why are ttrpgs such an outlier in that respect?