Quote from: jhkim on April 17, 2023, 03:12:46 PM
WotC has already walked back Crawford's statement, as I noted in reply #139.

I dispute this and do not believe it is a walk-back.  It's a clarification.  Crawford stated that "The 'half' construction is inherently racist, but then promised that "they'll still be" in the 2014 PHB and on their build-a-bitch website, dndbeyond.

The reason I dispute that it is a "walk-back" is that what Crawford said was the bit about it being inherently racist.  Unless they say explicitly that it is not (and by extension, the players that use it are not racist for using it), or unless they explicitly include it via the name "half-orc" and "half-elf" (and no other thing, such as "of mixed ancestry" or other), then they haven't walked back a damned thing.

By contrast, it was always obvious that characters of different antecedents would be allowed, as you yourself quoted the playtest document.  They are likely trying to do what Pathfinder did- instead of having a race called "half-elf", have an "ancestry" ("species" here I guess) named "elf" and one named "human", and have some "heritage" (or whatever) that lets you grab features of both.  Which, as you've already pointed out, exists in the playtest already.

But there's not been a walk-back.  This is just one more case where one of their stooges walks out, says some far-left hellscape comment, and is never walked back or apologized for.  Whether it's "White men... can't leave this hobby fast enough" (even with the meaning of "...shouldn't be able to make a living making these products" versus the more expansive idea of "whites not even being desired as consumer-only players and DMs") or whether it's calling everyone a racist for ever using the race pick of half-elf or half-orc, every single time they get to go out, ring their fucking bell, and then never have to apologize or recant in any way.  Victory after victory, unceasing, unrepentant, gloating, and hateful.

Quote from: jhkim on April 17, 2023, 03:12:46 PM

Quote from: GhostNinja on April 17, 2023, 12:12:05 PM

Quote from: Venka on April 17, 2023, 12:06:18 PM
Of course.  While most of the responses on reddit are solid, there's definitely some people who agree in some way even there:
https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/12cjl7c/eli5_why_is_wotc_removing_the_halfelf_and_halforc/

Reddit generally will go along with whatever social justice fad is happening- many favored a "morality clause" to try to strip rights from people they disagreed with, they just didn't like WotC trying to shove that into the OGL.  But even they don't buy being called racist for wanting half-elves and half-orcs in their books.

The thing is, they will.  As the editions come closer, the screws will be turned on the subreddits, and using the term "race" will get you shadowbanned or your post removed,

I don't pay any attention to Reddit and really how many of the people on there are actual gamers and how many are just SJWs acting as gamers to push their agenda?

WotC has already walked back Crawford's statement, as I noted in reply #139. As shown by the OGL fiasco, players will push back over certain things. WotC has some influence, but it only goes so far.

Well its great that they walked back his statement.  Now I wish they would do something to stop the casual racism that is being spewed by their employees.

Probably shouldn't hold my breath for that.

Quote from: Venka on April 17, 2023, 06:14:36 PM

Quote from: jhkim on April 17, 2023, 03:12:46 PM
WotC has already walked back Crawford's statement, as I noted in reply #139.

I dispute this and do not believe it is a walk-back.  It's a clarification.  Crawford stated that "The 'half' construction is inherently racist, but then promised that "they'll still be" in the 2014 PHB and on their build-a-bitch website, dndbeyond.

The reason I dispute that it is a "walk-back" is that what Crawford said was the bit about it being inherently racist.

OK, fair enough. It is not explicitly a walk-back, but it implies a shift away from that. If they're confirming support for half-races, that leans against products portraying them as inherently racist.

Quote from: Venka on April 17, 2023, 06:14:36 PM
But there's not been a walk-back.  This is just one more case where one of their stooges walks out, says some far-left hellscape comment, and is never walked back or apologized for.

True enough -- but getting an apology from anyone on the Internet is like pulling teeth. I don't think WotC even apologized per se for the OGL fiasco, even after they released on CC-BY, just gave excuses. I wouldn't expect an apology from any large corporation or even small ones like Palladium or Pinnacle.

Greetings!

"Walked Back". *Laughing* Yeah, WOTC hasn't "Walked Back" a damned thing. They might be able to change everything around if they FIRED JEREMY CRAWFORD, KYLE BINKS, and the entire executive RPG and game designer/writer staff. Kyle Binks, all the executives under him, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, everyone involved with Strixhaven, the Radiant Citadel, Ravenfuck, all of these people.

FIRE THEM ALL.

That would be the first step to house-cleaning, to eliminate the degenerate, racist, woke scum.

At least then, WOTC could potentially hire some normal, non-racist, non-fucking Woke game designers and writers--and non-racist, Woke executives as well--to actually run and lead the D&D brand. It wouldn't hurt either to seek out people that actually have writing and design skills. Hell, even people that actually play D&D and love D&D, that would be an improvement.

And fire every single fucking "Cultural Consultant" and "Sensitivity Reader". They all must be fucking fired *snap*.

And for all the wormy Neville Chamberlains--ask yourself, take everything WOTC has said--executives, designers, employees on Twitter--if they had said all of what they said--sub out WHITE--and place in Back, or Asian, or Latino, or the fucking rainbow hippos, and see what the kind of reaction there would be.

I guarantee you none of these people would still have a fucking job at WOTC.

I know none of that will ever happen though.

So, let them all bathe in napalm.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jhkim on April 17, 2023, 07:06:17 PM
OK, fair enough. It is not explicitly a walk-back, but it implies a shift away from that. If they're confirming support for half-races, that leans against products portraying them as inherently racist.

Well, what he said was racist was "the construction", meaning, the games rules shouldn't call someone a "half-elf".  You can make the case that, in the fantasy world, such a phrase actually is racist- it portrays them as being based on their human side primarily, meaning that such a phrase is likely what humans would call someone, and it generally implies that this is their dominant and most defining feature.  In the context of the game world, it's plausible to say it is racist.  Of course, as a game rule, nothing is racist about it- but generally there's been quite a bunch of make-noise about this type of issue in the past few years, where a game rule or in-world thing says something that provides an excuse for the singing of the Performative Wokesong.  They aren't confused about what is and is not in the game world- they explicitly claim that such a thing is a distinction without a difference, or that simply having such a construct as part of the rules is itself a political statement that they are opposed to and must deconstruct.

I'm sure you'll still be able to play a half-elf, but at this point it sounds like they'll use a different "construction" for it- for instance, you might pick "human" to determine some features and "elf" to determine others, and there may be a level 1 feat that gives you some mix of that as well, only available to those of some elven blood, etc.  Other games have done this, in some cases for the exact same reasons, and in some cases for completely different reasons.

QuoteTrue enough -- but getting an apology from anyone on the Internet is like pulling teeth. I don't think WotC even apologized per se for the OGL fiasco, even after they released on CC-BY, just gave excuses.

also:

QuoteI wouldn't expect an apology from any large corporation or even small ones like Palladium or Pinnacle.

Oh no, it's super easy to get an apology.  That's why it's so galling that they don't.

Here's WotC apologizing for porting the Hadozee:
https://www.pcgamer.com/wizards-of-the-coast-apologizes-for-and-removes-racist-elements-of-spelljammer/
We wanted to acknowledge and own the inclusion of offensive material within our recent Spelljammer: Adventures in Space content. We failed you, our players and our fans, and we are truly sorry.

See?  That's an apology.  They are sorry that their monkeys offended someone, because naturally, when you see monkeys, you think black people, and when you see slaves, you think black people.  Naturally, right?  So they are sooooo sorrrrry.  And of course, leftists journalists put this well crafted apology on a stick and paraded it around.  Lets be clear: the closest thing we've ever had to that is this premium Zak S content thread, where apology.jpg is still being batted around.  And that's not even political.

But don't think that WotC just apologizes for monkeymen!  No, they love to apologize.  Here's Polygon going bonkers during the summer of terror, when Wizards banned Crusade and Invoke Prejudice, even pretending that Invoke Prejudice was no longer hilariously and forever card #1488:
https://www.polygon.com/2020/6/10/21287154/racist-magic-the-gathering-cards-banned-removed-from-database-wizards-apology
Here's their release at the time:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/depictions-racism-magic-2020-06-10

But to that point, it should never have been published nor placed in the Gatherer. And for that we are sorry.

Again, they can't wait to apologize when it is the interest of their politics, but they will never do so if it would moralize their enemy (that's anyone opposed to their censorship, and possibly all men, and possibly whites, and rest assured, if you disagree with them politically, you'll be "culturally white" which, while it won't get you a cool title in the klan, will at least qualify you for a spot against their wall!).

Further, I will assume that they will apologize whenever they remove the "half-orc" name, and they'll definitely apologize when the $CURRENT_THING pointer is aimed at something about sex or sexuality or whatever is being deconstructed next.  I wouldn't bet on them doing fur-inclusivity, I'm not the next Rush Limbaugh, but if they did it, I wouldn't be shocked.  Basically, when the next political push happens, and everyone stamps their feet to push towards a new normal that they can then relax from (this is, shockingly, the "relax" period, sorry to say), there's a decent chance that they'll find something to apologize about.  Maybe they'll apologize to dark wizards for hinting that evil exists, or to black people some more, for sometimes using terms like "dark wizard" in their flavor text or in earlier versions, which they will then need to claw back.

At this point, I'm kinda having a good time, so instead of searching for stuff I actually remembered, I just went for shit like "Wizards of the coast apologizes".  That stuff is there too!

https://bleedingcool.com/games/wizards-issues-apology-re-forsaken-novel-magic-the-gathering/
Here they are sorry that one writer decided a character was bisexual and another decided she was not.  I couldn't find the actual apology, but the internet seems to claim it exists, even if the webpage 404ed.

There's also some Play-Doh extruder from 2014 that is really super obviously a penis, that they apologized for.  That one wasn't to push a political angle, but it was also 2014, and also totally a dong.



I also want to point out that while they don't explicitly apologize here, they address their latest made up issue and "promise to do better":
https://dnd.wizards.com/news/diversity-and-dnd

(this is when they got rid of negative modifiers to Int for orcs, etc, and give their reasons why- which are all real world politics, etc.)

Also Wizards did sorta apologize for the OGL.  They said they were sorry for the "pain they have caused the community", which by itself would be mealy-mouthed, but they also took their SRD and put it under creative commons.  You could argue that it's a shifty apology and not phrased as genuinely as their others, but they also backed it up with something that had large cost for them and pure benefit to fans- very much unlike their other apologies, which were all destroying something that some fans liked, at not real cost to themselves- we paid the price for all that stuff, and the entire beneficiary was the leftists, be they fans, customers, or just kotaku readers, who could sleep better at night knowing that something had been taken from us and that, as best their corporate allies could, their enemies were denied some small measure of comfort.

I'm torn on this.  On the one hand, I've never liked half races in D&D or even other fantasy RPGs.  My understanding is that they're not just different races of humanity, they're different species, thus they should not be able to produce offspring.  Okay, maybe donkeylike infertile offspring if they're really close genetically, but my impression is that they're not.  They also blur the distinctiveness of the races, which makes getting a clear idea of what each one is like more difficult.  AFIAC half-races don't add anything beneficial to the game.

On the other hand, by calling half-races "racist"  WotC is taking the stupid to a whole new level, which I would not have believed possible had I not seen it.

I wish they'd just said "We're taking these out because it's a dumb idea" and been done with it.

Quote from: Mishihari on April 18, 2023, 12:20:12 AM
I'm torn on this.  On the one hand, I've never liked half races in D&D or even other fantasy RPGs.  My understanding is that they're not just different races of humanity, they're different species, thus they should not be able to produce offspring.  Okay, maybe donkeylike infertile offspring if they're really close genetically, but my impression is that they're not.  They also blur the distinctiveness of the races, which makes getting a clear idea of what each one is like more difficult.  AFIAC half-races don't add anything beneficial to the game.

The thing that all this talk about genetic compatibility seems to be missing is...


And also humans cross breeding with magical creatures like fey (such as Elves), demons and angels is already established in real life folklore. So including them in D&D isn't such a far fetched concept, cuz this ain't sci-fi.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 18, 2023, 12:44:46 AM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 18, 2023, 12:20:12 AM
I'm torn on this.  On the one hand, I've never liked half races in D&D or even other fantasy RPGs.  My understanding is that they're not just different races of humanity, they're different species, thus they should not be able to produce offspring.  Okay, maybe donkeylike infertile offspring if they're really close genetically, but my impression is that they're not.  They also blur the distinctiveness of the races, which makes getting a clear idea of what each one is like more difficult.  AFIAC half-races don't add anything beneficial to the game.

The thing that all this talk about genetic compatibility seems to be missing is...

And also humans cross breeding with magical creatures like fey (such as Elves), demons and angels is already established in real life folklore. So including them in D&D isn't such a far fetched concept, cuz this ain't sci-fi.

All of the Sword & Planet genre, Star Trek and other Sci-Fi IPs want a word with you.

Half-Race is such a strange concept. Partly taken from wargames where there were half-troops of some kinds, and partly from the books that Gygax read, but mostly I would have thought from having races as classes originally. So a "Half-Elf" made no more or less sense than someone being a "Half-Ranger" and really only meant having a few bonuses. A real rules hack enshrined in AD&D.

I don't play D&D at all since BECMI but has the current cultural revolution stuff attacked "classes" yet? After all, the struggle of class against class is a political struggle.

Quote from: FASERIPopedia on April 18, 2023, 01:41:37 AMHalf-Race is such a strange concept.

I don't find it strange at all. The people calling it strange or silly either bring up genetics (which is silly in a universe where the races were made by gods) or just give reasons why they don't like the concept, and the inference is 'so obviously I'm right.'

Half Human, Half X goes back at least thousands of years in to our very formative mythologies, an is super common in fantasy and sci-fi. I'd say the burden of proof that it's dumb is well and truly on the people that dislike it.

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 18, 2023, 02:14:22 AM

Quote from: FASERIPopedia on April 18, 2023, 01:41:37 AMHalf-Race is such a strange concept.

I don't find it strange at all. The people calling it strange or silly either bring up genetics (which is silly in a universe where the races were made by gods) or just give reasons why they don't like the concept, and the inference is 'so obviously I'm right.'

Half Human, Half X goes back at least thousands of years in to our very formative mythologies, an is super common in fantasy and sci-fi. I'd say the burden of proof that it's dumb is well and truly on the people that dislike it.

No, in fiction I think half-races are great, and go back all the way to earliest known tales. I meant specifically in the wargamey D&D part of the hobby, especially back when the Gygaxian "under no circumstances allow a character to reflect the power levels of a heroic fantasy story" stuff was the norm. It kept defying logic.

If a "full strength" Elf has ability of whatever say 60 feet range super duper vision, then a median Half-Elf would have? 30 Feet range same vision? But at one point it was "you have to CHOOSE and CHOOSE WISELY what you get from the Elf side" and then it was "averaging dice" and things like that. At that time I went over to RuneQuest etc. and never went back until I did a one-off BECMI retroclone addon book. Multiclassing in BECMI as an Elf-whatever multiclass was one way to do it and it definitely increased the power levels to those of the original stories.

So many problems in D&D are and always have been self created.

Quote from: VisionStorm on April 18, 2023, 12:44:46 AM

Quote from: Mishihari on April 18, 2023, 12:20:12 AM
I'm torn on this.  On the one hand, I've never liked half races in D&D or even other fantasy RPGs.  My understanding is that they're not just different races of humanity, they're different species, thus they should not be able to produce offspring.  Okay, maybe donkeylike infertile offspring if they're really close genetically, but my impression is that they're not.  They also blur the distinctiveness of the races, which makes getting a clear idea of what each one is like more difficult.  AFIAC half-races don't add anything beneficial to the game.

The thing that all this talk about genetic compatibility seems to be missing is...

magic

And also humans cross breeding with magical creatures like fey (such as Elves), demons and angels is already established in real life folklore. So including them in D&D isn't such a far fetched concept, cuz this ain't sci-fi.

Nothing new here of course ... this conversation has been had innumerable times .  As in everything it's a matter of personal preference.  I don't like the argument "because magic" because it can be used to justify any nonsensical thing.  Just because it's a fantasy game doesn't mean I want to throw baseline nature out the window.  I'll happily do so for a good reason, but every departure from real life has a cost in verisimilitude and player connection to the world.  In the case of half races, I just don't think it's worth it.  They don't add anything to the game that can't be done better by having actually different races.

The bit about folklore is a reasonable point, and I'd included half races if I'm trying to emulate some specific folklore setting, but otherwise still no.

Quote from: jhkim on April 17, 2023, 07:06:17 PM
OK, fair enough. It is not explicitly a walk-back, but it implies a shift away from that. If they're confirming support for half-races, that leans against products portraying them as inherently racist.

The text you've been quoting about mixed ancestry as a 'walk back' predates the statement that "half race" terminology is racist. It's not a walk back, and the two are entirely compatible.

They are eliminating the idea of half races who take aspects from both parents. In the new version you can only have attributes from one parent.

Quote from: S'mon on April 18, 2023, 03:33:22 AM

Quote from: jhkim on April 17, 2023, 07:06:17 PM
OK, fair enough. It is not explicitly a walk-back, but it implies a shift away from that. If they're confirming support for half-races, that leans against products portraying them as inherently racist.

The text you've been quoting about mixed ancestry as a 'walk back' predates the statement that "half race" terminology is racist. It's not a walk back, and the two are entirely compatible.

They are eliminating the idea of half races who take aspects from both parents. In the new version you can only have attributes from one parent.

Greetings!

Great commentary, S'mon! I get what they are doing--and what you're saying--but the whole idea of you being a "Half X" but somehow being restricted to picking only traits from one parent...is prima facie absurd. Normal, natural biological dynamics demonstrate to us that mixed offspring clearly--and typically--gain attributes from both parents.

Example: I love dogs. I've had dogs all of my life, usually Labradors. One dog I had, though, was a Labrador/Border Collie mix. Despite my dog, named Lugh, looking kind of funny--he was shorter than a Labrador, but had a wider snout than Border Collies, clearly showing the Labrador mouth, and many other aspects of blended features. Overall, he looked like a Border Collie, but at a closer inspection, he was short, like a Border Collie, but much broader--having a barrel chest like a Labrador, a Labrador mouth, and so on. Like I said, he was kind of funny looking, but he also blended Border Collie and Labrador intellect--the dog was absolutely off the charts smart. Lugh also instinctively stayed close to me, instantly obeying commands without formal training, and also naturally "herded" my wife to stay close, as well as visiting nieces and nephews. Lugh was hilarious!

We know these dynamics work constantly in the real world--how much even more so, in a fantastic, magical world? Minotaurs, Centaurs, Satyrs, as well as Half Dragons, Half Angels, Half Demons--hello Dragonborn, Tieflings, and Assimar! And, of course, through mythology and literature, Half Orcs and Half Elves, amongst many more.

WOTC's stated editorial or policy change--and their reasoning behind such changes--are just...dumb, you know? Nonsensical, stupid, and laughable in a bad way. It seems so arbitrary and stupid, violating verisimilitude and normal biology and logic as well.

I know. I shouldn't get cranked up about it anyways. Like you, my friend, I'm done with WOTC. I no longer am a customer for them, for anything. WOTC has offended me, insulted me, BEYOND THE PALE. (Is that still an expression in glorious England?)

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Mishihari on April 18, 2023, 03:25:20 AMI don't like the argument "because magic" because it can be used to justify any nonsensical thing. 

I agree but D&D has almost always used magic to justify nonsense. D&D was a gritty """Realistic""" universe for a very very very short period of time, and was filled with different goofy monsters for much much longer.