Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2022, 02:01:43 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 26, 2022, 01:57:06 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2022, 01:40:22 PM
IDGAF about their complaints because they will ALWAYS find a way to complaint, as you yourself recognize, for fucks sake they claim Orcs are a representation of black people. We should point at their racism and laugh them off the hobby.

Yeah, they're looking for things to complain about and don't care if their complaints actually have merit or not.

QuoteBut, if anyone wants to change drow or to make a new evil race that's snow white because they think it's cool more power to them.

As long as it is because rule of cool and not because the SJWs complain.

Mongoose's Monster Encyclopaedia 2 - Dark Bestiary included evil wood elves, the Dopkalfar. The text outright calls them "negative-image drow". You can tell how much creativity went into their concept, but it fits right in with the typical D&D milieu.

Wouldn't a "negative-image drow" be good? As in not evil?

Yeah, gotta love the creativity and the effort put into it.

Hyperboreans (Change the name to fit your world): they live up north in the mountains, are snow white with black hair, they are evil, corrupt and degenerates. They worship some demons, do lots of drugs and commit the worst attrocities, known slavers.

No, it was just a visual description. They had snow white skin and ebony hair. Like Snow White, but evil Snow White

Quote from: Krazz on August 26, 2022, 02:04:26 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 26, 2022, 01:30:12 PM
You know, I think SJWs would have way less ground to stand on if we could trot out some white-skinned evil race in D&D whenever they complained about drow.

They already have no ground to stand on. If you made this evil white race, they would complain that none of this cool new race are black, and that's an example of white supremacism. Don't treat them as though they're having good-faith discussions.

As Kyle Reese might have said:

Quote
The woke are out there. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!

Personally, I think we should get back at them by refusing to indulge in the racism they think should be the only viewpoint in the world. Have fun with RPGs, and learn from Enworld's fate. Don't let a quality site like this go the same way. Sometimes things can only be of use as warnings for the future.

This is an excellent post. Ignore the Race Warriors. Laugh at them. They hate laughter.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2022, 01:40:22 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 26, 2022, 01:30:12 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2022, 12:57:22 PM
I'm not complaining about anyone making Orcs, Drow, etc whatever color they want. I'm saying I won't comply with their demands.

Maybe not you personally, but some of us are complaining:

Quote from: Zelen on August 20, 2022, 04:57:28 PM
They're trying their damndest to make the orcs look White too. It just shows their weird fucking skincolor based morality. Fuck em.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 26, 2022, 12:57:22 PMAs for pure white evil things IIRC the Hyperboreans in Conan are like that, and they are a decadent evil race.

Or the Melnibonéans. Elric is a bit like a white-skinned Drizzt.

You know, I think SJWs would have way less ground to stand on if we could trot out some white-skinned evil race in D&D whenever they complained about drow. But I can't recall any evil races in D&D that are prominently called out as white colored. Even though the Hyperboreans/Hyborians and Melnibonéans are prominent examples in pulp fiction, D&D never included a pastiche of them. Feels like a huge missed opportunity to me.

Of course then I feel they'd deflect by claiming it was just an example of the evil albino trope.

Well, it does show their skin color based morality.

IDGAF about their complaints because they will ALWAYS find a way to complaint, as you yourself recognize, for fucks sake they claim Orcs are a representation of black people. We should point at their racism and laugh them off the hobby.

As for using Hyperboreans I'm not sure REH was in the public domain back then, of course you could have called them halflings or something to work around the copyright, same with the Melnibonéans.

But, if anyone wants to change drow or to make a new evil race that's snow white because they think it's cool more power to them.

As long as it is because rule of cool and not because the SJWs complain.

Melnibonéans were pretty much elves. Dark and twisted ones, mind you. I got that thinking from Corum being a Vadhagh and his people were akin to Melnibonéans. Somewhere there's mention of them (Elric and Corum) being a similar race. And with Corum being called an elf in the second Corum trilogy it just makes sense.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 26, 2022, 09:27:39 AM

Quote from: 3catcircus on August 26, 2022, 08:47:19 AM
by daring to state that making drow have dark skin and commit evil acts isn't racism against African Americans.

If the wokies are going to redraw orcs as white-skinned to show their contempt for white people, then maybe we should take the moral high ground and set a better example by avoiding that sort of thing?

I get that Gygax wasn't trying to be racist, but the Curse of Ham backstory for drow rubs a lot of people the wrong way. Attention could be taken away from this by giving dark elves a variety of skin tones. Instead of dark skin specifically, they could be "cursed" (or blessed by Lolth?) with so-called fiendish features like tieflings. Such as seen in these concepts for EverQuest dark elves: https://imgur.com/a/4XOpS3C

Taking the moral high ground has never worked ever. The real answer is to gatekeep harder.

ENWorld remains a universe better than TBP. It's not even close. The moderation is so, so, SO much more reasonable.

Quote from: Mistwell on August 26, 2022, 09:49:50 PM
ENWorld remains a universe better than TBP. It's not even close. The moderation is so, so, SO much more reasonable.

Better than TBP is not exactly a difficult standard to meet.

Quote from: Mistwell on August 26, 2022, 09:49:50 PM
ENWorld remains a universe better than TBP. It's not even close. The moderation is so, so, SO much more reasonable.

This is true, while at the same time it's equally true that ENW has notably poor moderation. The best moderation I know is probably on Dragonsfoot - Steve is a saint! 

Quote from: Hzilong on August 26, 2022, 11:32:27 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on August 26, 2022, 09:49:50 PM
ENWorld remains a universe better than TBP. It's not even close. The moderation is so, so, SO much more reasonable.

Better than TBP is not exactly a difficult standard to meet.

Well that was sort of my point. It's actually quite hard to get banned from ENWorld. You can get kicked out of a thread and warned and temp banned, but an actual perma-ban is very uncommon and only for genuine extreme stuff.

Quote from: Mistwell on August 27, 2022, 10:37:58 AM

Quote from: Hzilong on August 26, 2022, 11:32:27 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on August 26, 2022, 09:49:50 PM
ENWorld remains a universe better than TBP. It's not even close. The moderation is so, so, SO much more reasonable.

Better than TBP is not exactly a difficult standard to meet.

Well that was sort of my point. It's actually quite hard to get banned from ENWorld. You can get kicked out of a thread and warned and temp banned, but an actual perma-ban is very uncommon and only for genuine extreme stuff.

What does it matter if they don't permanently ban you when they'll threadban or suspend you for any differing opinions from the groupthink?

Quote from: Hzilong on August 26, 2022, 11:32:27 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on August 26, 2022, 09:49:50 PM
ENWorld remains a universe better than TBP. It's not even close. The moderation is so, so, SO much more reasonable.

Better than TBP is not exactly a difficult standard to meet.

Agreed. Also, being a 'universe better' is not relevant to whether or not ENWorld has decayed. In fact, OP already stated it was not as bad as TBP.

Moderation and anti-member behavior has increased over the years, and in my mind that is an environment in decay. ENWorld is a cesspool with an agenda.

As long as the money keeps coming in Morrus will let the site do whatever it will. Once his revenue stream is "threatened" will he take action.  The mods aren't as bad as TBP but they are a far cry worse than on the old NKL/CM boards.

As soon as the woke mobs attack Morrus for being a "rich white male of privilage" he will boot them the fuck off the site and barricade the door behind them.

I recently started watching a bunch of RPGPundit's youtube videos which brought me here. So I registered just to post in this thread. 
It's nice to see some ENworld users I remember from back in the day! It's refreshing to see I'm not alone in my assessment of the RPG community and ENworld specifically.

I finally left ENworld around 2014 or so. Couldn't stand the moderation, and the influx of SJW posts made it unbearable. I can't imagine how bad it is these days.

I was never really moderated myself. I just got tired of seeing others unfairly moderated as if we couldn't have discussions like grown adults. I'm not a fan of seeing adults babysat like children.

I just wanted to mention here (because nobody brought it up), but I remember Morrus on multiple occasions confidently stating that ENworld is not a democracy, it's a dictatorship. He even added that to the forum code of conduct if I remember correctly. I understand trying to run a tight ship and keep the place fun and enjoyable, but treating it like a dictatorship doesn't sit well with me. Bragging about it is even more of a turn off. Mostly because, just like what's happened to every inch of our entertainment, that dictatorship style of management is always one-sided (the left side). So I eventually bounced. I've only gone back a couple of times to check in on the old 3.5e Creature Catalogue updates when I need conversions.

I believe the fall of ENworld really cranked up when Morrus decided to commercialize the site and make a living off of it. That's when we lost a lot of great material on the site and it was replaced with SJW bullshit and moneymaking schemes. I fully believe Morrus encouraged this leftist behavior and over-moderation in his attempt to profit more from the site. Non-woke people were a threat to the image he wanted the website to portray.

Agree with most of what is written in this thread.

EN World has devolved into pure SJW / Leftist territory. Not much redeeming value to it, these days.

There is a nice little thread there on how Spelljammer is racist...

https://www.enworld.org/threads/new-wotc-racism-allegations-regarding-hadozee-and-spelljammer.691134/

Apparently the creatures called Hadozee are supposed to be black people because they're space-apes who can play the lute and an early draft of their backstory referred to them as deck apes. 

Never mind the fact that the term "deck ape" has fuck-all to do with black people and everything to do with ridiculing the non-rates doing painting and chipping in Deck Division on USN ships because they're assumed to be too dumb to have qualified for a technical school.

Never mind the fact that they are, in fact, Yazirians from Star Frontiers (they even identify this in the writeup for their origin story) - which is kinda cool that they did a crossover.

But the morons ranting about racism are likely too young to even know about Star Frontiers, but they sure are clawing past each other to prove each is the most not racist...

If your first instinct at seeing a non-human space alien race with a history involving wizards is to declare it racist because they're obviously african people, maybe you're the one with the racist thoughts?

In ENW's heyday, there wouldn't be a bunch of virtue signalling about Yazirians in D&D.  There'd be discussions of how they ended up in D&D and is Spelljammer the past of Star Frontiers?  Someone would put together stats for lasers and albedo suits. Someone would start working on Yazir's planetary geography and what crystal sphere it is in and identify travel distances between it and other campaign settings.  There isn't even any discussion of a really great thing that Spelljammer 5e is attempting - failing forward when the dice don't cooperate or the DM wants to throw a wrinkle into things.

That's really the main reason ENW is a shitshow now - there is pretty much *zero* creativity going into the hobby. It's nothing more than a advertising platform that Morrus collects rent on where the squeaky wheel of SJWs gets the grease in order to keep the cashola flowing into his pockets. 

Compare the discussion on ENW re: Spelljammer vs. the discussion on Polygon.  The response to an article about weird races in Spelljammer that included penguin-people was someone stating they couldn't wait to include D&D Ferengi Penguins into his home game.  And Polygon isn't exactly a far-right outfit...

So I actually registered here simply to talk about Enworld, this is my first post. 

I just slid down the internet rabbit hole and it lead me here via the weird roundabout ways that the internet sometimes does when searching for unrelated things.

So I've popped into Enworld from time to time over the years but only reading a few threads here and there about things completely mechanical in nature or related to the D&D game world. I watched a video today about One D&D which then lead me down the rabbit hole to Enworld which eventually led me farther down the rabbit hole to here.

The top post on Enworld was the one about Spelljammer and the Hadozee as mentioned here. When I read the first few messages related to it I was sure I was reading a piss take and people were being facetious. They were talking about WOTC's 'cultural coordinators' and 'sensitivity readers' and "DEI resources" so I was laughing as I read long. About a dozen messages in with no LOLs or smiley faces and I realized. These fucking people are serious! I just sat in utter amazement. Is this a thing now? Are things really this far gone? Has every single once sane place, hobby, activity, been fully converged by the Hive Mind? I guess I need to read more often but admittedly I hadn't read that forum probably in at least 5-6 years.

Also another top message thread was the one listing the numerous sins of TSR including Drow being racist even though they literally look not at all like African Americans. Their features are quite European and they are literally jet black. This did not stop people from saying they had African features and nappy hair in depictions. I've been playing D&D for decades and have seen much artwork in that time. They have never been depicted as such.

What I quickly concluded reading the dozens and dozens of messages lamenting these two things is that, unsurprisingly, the far left lunatics are the most racist people of all. If you see a literal flying monkey, a dark skinned 'evil' being, or an orc and your first thought is "black people" you are racist AF, full stop. Yet, it was all they could talk about and how any creature even remotely simian in appearance should be avoided at all cost. If that doesn't broadcast your absurd latent racism to the world I simply don't know what does.

Anyhow, nice forum you have here, hopefully the mind virus shall not find a host here as the places where non radical cultists can gather seem to be getting vanishingly small these days.