It doesn't bother me in the least, to see images of a diverse nature.  That's totally fine. 

I don't like a rewriting of what actually existed, or else preachy text about modern societal stuff, in my Medieval-flavored RPGs.

Create something different, and put whatever you want in it.  New Coke was a failure, because people didn't want that.  It never should have completely replaced, Original Coke.  Create something new and different, without walking all over existing products.  Offer an alternative, not a replacement.

Quote from: jhkim on Today at 02:50:58 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on Today at 02:31:23 PM

Quote from: jhkim on Today at 01:52:17 PMThe D&D cartoon starting in 1983 featured a black girl as one of its core characters.

Including women or non-whites isn't automatically woke.

Gender/race bending is.

Speaking about "too much white straight men" is woke.

Including a black girl as a core character in the D&D series was unquestionably an intentional choice of ethnic diversity in the cast, just like other 1980s series like Captain Planet and the Planeteers.



This sort of planned ethnic diversity is clearly ideologically connected to the diversity of characters in 3E and later.

You could call it "pre-woke" or something by drawing the line differently, but I think it's obviously connected.

Fortunately, Captain Planet has nothing to do with the 80s.  It's a 90s series.

Quote from: jhkim on Today at 05:10:04 PMWhat are you claiming the percentages show? The D&D characters were random American kids on an amusement park ride, while the Planeteers came from all over the world. It would be ridiculous for the Planeteers to be 83% white.

If anything, the D&D group seems more forced. If I looked at groups of kids going on an amusement park ride in the U.S. in 1983 - it would be quite rare to see that mix of age, ethnicity, and gender as Diana and the others.

The show Captain Planet SPECIFICALLY was designed to promote "diversity", that is my point. And yes, I don't know where you grew up, but when I was younger there was always a token black kid in the friend group so it made perfect sense to me. D&D didn't seem forced whatsoever.

EDIT: And honestly, this is all stupid, anyway. Maybe the people who made the cartoon wanted to have an attractive minority (hell, two girls!) to promote the idea that ANYONE could play it, not just us nerds. I know I would not have minded if some buxom cheerleaders or gymnasts played D&D with us during lunch...so yeah, this isn't "woke", it's just good marketing. Just a group of normal friends and the kid brother, nothing more. To address the original question, I think when they removed all the devils and stuff to appease the retarded Pat Robertson nonsense (my mom was in that group...and STILL IS) was the beginning of the end. You start kowtowing to morons, you will do it more and more even when they are not a legitimate threat. The current state of the US just demonstrates that braying fucktards can get a lot done even when they legitimately do not give one fuck about a product.

You can call it "Proto-woke", "pre-woke", feminism, or political correctness; but whatever you call it, the ROT goes back much further in the hobby than people think...

The busybodies were ragging on Gygax even in the 0e days:


His masterful troll response has been used as a bludgeon against him in recent times by people incapable of understanding sarcasm.

Quote from: jhkim on Today at 02:50:58 PMYou could call it "pre-woke" or something by drawing the line differently, but I think it's obviously connected.

Jhkim is right.

That's right, I said it.


And we all know now with hindsight that as the hobby grew, the weirdo's within it also grew:

Quote from: GeekyBugle on Today at 11:02:44 AMThe infiltration was underway even under TSR, IMHO the first sign was an article in Dragon about Chainmail Bikinis. Sadly I can't remember the issue.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on Today at 12:07:05 PMThat depends on how one defines 'woke' and the degree of infection. One of the first issues of Dragon I ever bought (#168, April 1991) included a Forum letter decrying the 'game racism' of painting goblinoids as purely evil and only enemies, and included thoughts on alternative ways to use them. (It didn't draw the parallels to real racism.) ...

And Armchair gamer hits the nail on the head::

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on Today at 12:07:05 PMThere have been differences of opinion about the game from the beginning. If I were to identify a tipping point at when 'official D&D' began to tilt in a more progressive/revolutionary direction away from its roots, it would be the acquisition of TSR by WotC and the resulting shift in the game's local and corporate culture.

Jonathan Tweet straight-up bragged about this in a series of articles on ENWorld. It's no secret.

D&D will not become "un-woke" until the ownership changes hands.

Luckily we do not need "official D&D" for anything. Plenty of alternatives out there that do exactly the same thing, only better.

Like ACKSII*...


* This fanboy shilling was completely unsolicited by anyone associated with ACKSII.

Quote from: Jaeger on Today at 06:08:07 PMLike ACKSII*...

* This fanboy shilling was completely unsolicited by anyone associated with ACKSII.

I asked about this in another thread, can you please make a new one that goes over the content? I am debating on whether or not to drop $$$$ on a thousand page RPG...