Quote from: Chris24601 on January 27, 2021, 12:37:00 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 26, 2021, 11:55:37 PM
Yeah.  I almost feel sorry for the people who knuckle under and change their language because of the whining of the perpetually offended.

To be fair, there are reasons other than SJW appeasement to drop the term "race."

I dropped it for species because I feel its just damned stupid to call an array of options that includes robots, talking animals, embodied spirits, dragons, giants sprites, humanoid insects and humans "races."

Races makes sense if your options are limited to the Middle Earth stans because there actually IS some shared ancestry among the "races of men."

It makes zero sense when your options wouldn't be out of place sharing the Mos Eisley cantina.

And that reason is, when one isn't playing fantasy.

Quote from: Trinculoisdead on January 27, 2021, 01:08:39 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on January 27, 2021, 12:37:00 AM
To be fair, there are reasons other than SJW appeasement to drop the term "race."

I dropped it for species because I feel its just damned stupid to call an array of options that includes robots, talking animals, embodied spirits, dragons, giants sprites, humanoid insects and humans "races."

And that reason is, when one isn't playing fantasy.

Splitting the difference here a little: I think "species" does sound more like science fiction than fantasy. Still, I also think that warforged, talking animals, and dragons are all creatures that aren't well described by calling them a "race".

I'm not sure what is preferable. "Heritage" might be a better word. "Creature type" sounds a little too clinical, though it is most accurate.

Just call them thing.

When making a character just choose your thing.  Then choose your other thing. 

Quote from: sureshot on January 26, 2021, 08:25:06 AM
Another hit piece from Wired magazine appraently RACISTS ARE EVERYWHERE in the hobby.

https://www.wired.com/story/dandd-must-grapple-with-the-racism-in-fantasy/

Yeah, the real depths of their crack reporting at Wired is evident with this... <sneer> Might as well be reading the Washington Post, or one of the Murdoch rags. Wired describes D&D as being specifically racist against Orcs, however the Tolkien orcs that were used in D&D, were unquestionably evil. The same in depth reporting is evident in the following false assertions and false statements made by the reporter who wrote this article, one Cecilia D'Anastasio who used to be (or maybe still is) a Kotaku reporter.

She's busy over on Twitter doing Witch hunts for "Predators" instead of talking about games, and I'll save further commentary on that for some other time, and justget back to my response to her crappy article in Wired, right after providing a link for her Twitter so the rest of you can keep an eye on her. Smells like an SJW setup to me.  However let's address her attack on D&D and reveal her piss poor writing skills... I find it very hard to believe Wired actually pays her money to write about games. You all may have heard of her before, because we have certainly written about her here.

Cecilia D'Anastasio on Twitter
https://twitter.com/cecianasta/status/1346166945134080000

Anyway in the wired article she writes: "Orcs are human beings who can be slaughtered without conscience or apology."

Orcs are not humans, they are fucking orcs. miserable tortured once long ago (according to Tolkien who had studied European Mythology for many decades long before she or I was ever born) )Elven creatures that dug themselves out of the ground after being buried with the very essence of evil. In the traditional fantasy worlds, they only bring suffering, despair, and pain to humans. They can and should be slaughtered without conscience or apology, becuase they will slaughter humans without conscience or apology. Tolkien knew elves probably better than she or I ever could, as he has studied them for much longer than I have been alive, ...even now, ...and I'm quickly becoming venerable. Cecilia is still has the knowledge of a baby compared to either one of us.

She goes on to write, and I quote "Elves have otherworldly grace and enjoy poetry. Dark elves, known as Drow, have skin that "resembles charcoal" and are associated with the evil spider queen Lolth."  

They are fucking not. I knew of Dark Elves before I knew of D&D, as I had read about them first in Raymond Feists novel Magician, which predated TSR and Gygax Dark Elves almost half a decade. According to Feist, Who based his Dark Elveson his home game campaign, they were subterranean and simply untamed or wild, and simply didn't react well to the daylight, and races of the above.

In the first book, published in 1982 Pug the Magician went with his Leige Lord, Borric and fled from Castle Crydee which was under siege to Krondor to convey the news of a Tsurrani invasion from Tekumel, ...in fact the Tsoly'ani (Tsurrani to the people of Crydee) of Jakalla. While they are being hunted to death by the Tsurrani, they run into a band of migrating Dark Elves (The Drow who are also fleeing the Tsurrani) and get into yet another bad fight. The Dark Elves are pissed, they have been pushed out of their homes, and now they run into a band of humans who have invaded their forest and overrun their camp with their women and children, (with horses, I would add), so naturally they aggressively defend themselves. This was all part of a campaign originally in Raymonds D&D game, set in Midkemia, that he ran from I want to say 1975-76 on, and then wrote about later.

D&D Drow came about with the module Descent into the Depths of the Earth, which was first published in 1978 (This is inaccurate, as no modules but the B series was actually published before 1979) . In the last module in the preceding G-series, Hall of the Fire Giant King, the PCs were supposed to have discovered that the drow had instigated the alliance between the races of giants and their attacks on neighboring humans. The drow that survived the party's incursion have fled into tunnels leading deep into the earth. The adventurers will have arrived at the bottom of the dungeon below the cave-castle of King Snurre. In D1 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth, the PCs seek the home of the Drow by traveling through an underground world of caves and passages. In the tunnels, the adventurers first fight a tough drow patrol, and the next major fight is with a raiding party of mind flayers and wererats, who have halted their patrol long enough to torture their drow prisoner. The characters also find a grand cavern containing drow soldiers, purple worms, a lich, a clutch of undead, a giant slug, sphinxes, trolls, bugbears, troglodytes, wyverns, and fungi.

Other than at one-off games at conventions, I didn't see any of this, only the B series in the late 70's, except for B1 which was published in 1977. The G series was the second published set of modules being released by the RPGA. When the RPGA first published it in 1979, it was the Slavers (A Module series) series was introduced as part of an organized play campaign organized by the RPGA when it was founded in 1979, with the G series, being run at Ghenghis Con in 1981 and 82. the RPGA started the D series, with the Drow after that, I think I saw D1 in 1982 for the first time. But I already had adopted the wild Midkemia/Tekumel Drow for my home games long before, and they were not evil!  I really didn't see many D&D modules until 1980 or so...

Cecilia of course, wasn't even born, before all of this, including me, running Drow that were not evil, in my home-brewed games, occurred.

She goes on in her crappy Wired article to introduce the Elves as "...Good White People"... wait maybe not exactly like that, it is what she meant though. What she actually said and I quote was:

For Howard, desirable women were "lily-white." Elves, considered a superior race, were fair-skinned and light-eyed. In his work and Tolkien's, she says, "pretty much all of their own evil races—and even evil individuals, for the most part—are based on anti-black, anti-Semitic or Orientalist stereotypes." University of California, Irvine informatics professor Aaron Trammell has written about this at length as well.

I don't have any books by Robert E. Howard in my Library. In the movie Conan the Destroyer the stupid virgin princess was a white chick that Conan didn't even want, and instead he freed Zula, the last warrior of her tribe, a Nubian played by Grace Slick, and she joined his party and he accepted her without having to be charmed, unlike with the stupid virgin princess. Also, the Elves were never considered a superior race in Tolkiens' books.

First, Tolkien's Elves weren't all light-skinned, only the Vanyar were. They all have Golden hair. Most of you know Haldir, Thranduil, Celeborn, and Galdariel, they were all Vanyar The Teleri had darker skins, and a general tanned appearance. Some of them were also Grey, and were known as the Grey Elves, becuase they were not light or dark, but a combination of both. Some notable Teleri were Elrond's Daughter, a half Teleri, Arwen, and Luthien Tinuviel. The Nolder were the dark elves, actaully the Quenya translation is "Deep Elves". Elrond was part Noldor, Gil-Galad who was slain when defeating Sauron the first time, was also Nolder. Feanor the ancient great king, Feanwe, And Fingolfin, were also Noldor, they had chestnut or dark colored hair, and were not considered "Lily White", although the Noldor did consider themselves the superior among the races of elves.

The Valar attempted to fashion the world for Elves and Men, but Melkor continually destroyed their handiwork. After he destroyed the two lamps that illuminated the world, the Valar moved to Aman, a continent to the west of Middle-earth, where they established their home, Valinor. Yavanna created the Two Trees, which illuminated Valinor, leaving Middle-earth to darkness and Melkor.

Soon, stars created by Varda began to shine, causing the awakening of the Elves. The elves originally formed three groups: the Vanyar, the Noldor, and the Teleri, though some were captured and enslaved by Melkor, eventually to be bred into orcs. Knowing the danger the Elves were in, the Valar decided to fight Melkor to keep the Elves safe. After defeating and capturing Melkor, they invited the Elves to live in Aman. Many Elves accepted while others refused, and still others started for Aman but stopped along the way, including the Elves who later become the Sindar, ruled by the Elf King Thingol and Melian, a Maia. All of the Vanyar and Noldor, and many of the Teleri, reached Aman.

After a bunch of other B.S. that happened where the elves were not good to each other, Fëanor the Noldor high King, swore an oath of vengeance against Melkor and anyone who withheld the Silmarils from him, even the Valar, and made his seven sons do the same. He persuaded most of the Noldor to pursue Melkor, whom Fëanor renamed Morgoth, to Middle-earth. Fëanor's sons seized ships from the Teleri, attacking and killing many of them, and betrayed many of the Noldor, leaving them to make a perilous passage on foot in a memorable and tragic event known as the Kin-Slaying. Upon arriving in Middle-earth, the Noldor under Fëanor attacked Melkor and defeated his army, though Fëanor was killed by Balrogs. After a period of peace, Melkor attacked the Noldor, but was placed in a tight siege. Nearly 400 years later, he broke the siege and drove the Noldor back. 

The Elves didn't defeat Morgoth, either, they had to get the help of the Valar. I think the only actual good elves were the Grey elves, Including Luthien of the Teleri, who helped Beren, a man steal the Silmarils back from Morgoth, which the Noldor Elves then took and gave to the Grey Elves (Sindarin). Many of the Teleri were captured by Morgoth and twisted into Orcs, so they were'nt all good either.

Cecilia of course, knows nothing of this, because she has actually probably never read the Silmarillion, or she wouldn't be uttering them lies about the Elves over on wired magazine. In her ignorance she has been constructing this false narrative, or maybe all her SJW friends like Aaron Trammel at UC Davis. Been there, done that, and when I visited UC Davis, in Irvine... I found myself busy reading and translating a first printing St. Thomas Aquinas masterwork Summa Theologica, so I could understand christianity better.  Aaron Trammel seems to be there to try to figure out how not to be a white supremacist. What a waste of a good university education.

Cecilia also quotes Graeme Barber, who goes off one of the heroes of Dragonlance who is a persecuted half-elven, stating "I'm biracial myself. The animosity [Tanis] got from everywhere really sort of rubbed me the wrong way."

He then goes on to whine and lament about "There was always pressure from the outside for me to make my characters conform to narrow boxes," he says. And even in the absence of such pressure, he would be falling into another trap: exceptionalism. Half-orc scholars, gnome barbarians. Exceptional in a world that remains the same.

Days after the newest WOTC supplement Tasha's Cauldron of Everything was released, Barber penned a blog titled "Tasha's Cauldron Of No Change." "I think a lot of people were really disappointed with it because they were expecting something concrete," says Barber. "It didn't address anything. It just made these minor, superficial changes. Meanwhile, a whole bunch of stuff in the game remains." Optional rules are optional, he says. Lots of D&D groups were already offering the opportunity to be exceptional within a flawed system. It didn't address the game's deep-rooted racial essentialism.

All I have to say to this, is well, ...duh! It was AD&D 1e that codified racial discrimination with the Racial Preferences Table on Page 18, of the 1e AD&D Player's Handbook which is something I never adopted for my games by the way, in much the same way I never adopted requiring players to permanently maintain a specific morale alignment either. Any player in my games can change their alignment at will, just like people do in real life. Might be real hard to change back though, especially if other people observe this unexpected, or unwarranted change, like once again in real life.

My whole point is Cecilia missed all this, becuase when she says D&D Must Grapple with Racism in Fantasy she's obviously not talking about my D&D game, but about how WOTC is conducting itself as a steward of the TSR AD&D legacy. ...They are, of course, doing a terrible job, because they are a Company, and all about making money, and controversy and conflict sells well, including the conflict of racism.   

All this actually has nothing to do with Dungeons and Dragons. It's about Companies full of young people, full of racism, because they didn't learn anything at all in public schools. They didn't learn anything at the Universities they are attending, either. Maybe they should run their games without real-world racism in them, and just quit using the WOTC books, ...Dungeons & Dragons is high fantasy, after all. 

Quote from: jhkim on January 26, 2021, 10:57:54 PMI can enjoy Rambo for it's cheesy ridiculousness -- but it's also blatantly political. When Rambo teams up with mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and free American prisoners, that's about as political as a film gets -- far more pointedly political than modern movies like Captain Marvel or Black Panther, for example.

In practice, I find that people who say Rambo is "just entertainment" will also get upset at Captain Marvel rather than accept it as "just entertainment".

Rambo was never "just entertainment" at least not the first two.

The first one was about the plight of war veterans and especially how badly many of the Viet-Nam ones were treated on returning home. And does it without being ham-handed.
The second was of course about Afghanistan and not-so the cold war with Russia at the time. And does it without being too ham-handed. Kinda.
After that all bets are off as all the execs could see was violence sells.

Captain Marvel, Infinity War, and probably alot of upcomming marvel drivel are increasingly ham handed agenda platforms. Sometimes cloaked in a disguise of being political. Captain Marvel covered their agenda thinly with "think of the immigrants!". Whereas Infinity Gauntlet made no such efforts.

Quote from: TJS on January 27, 2021, 12:00:43 AM
I thought race was a silly word in the 90s.

Every time I taught the game to someone I had to say "they say race, but they really mean species".

No, they don't. There are many ways to define species, but none of them involve creation by the gods, which is the traditional origin of most fantasy races, from Tolkien's to those in many D&D settings. Elves didn't evolve into their niche, they were created. Not to mention, their characteristics are more metaphorical than adaptive. Or the problems with things like reproduction, since not only are half-elves fertile and viable, but so are half-dragons.

Race has some problems, but to use species you'd either have to go back to a pseudo-Aristotelian definition (which seems needlessly confusing, since nobody uses it that way anymore), or create some fantastic equivalent of a phylogeny within your setting.

Quote from: jhkim on January 27, 2021, 01:29:10 AM
Still, I also think that warforged, talking animals, and dragons are all creatures that aren't well described by calling them a "race".

I'm not sure what is preferable. "Heritage" might be a better word. "Creature type" sounds a little too clinical, though it is most accurate.

Heritage brings to mind cultural heritage more than anything, and doesn't seem a good fit for warforged or talking animals, either.

I used it dismissively a moment ago, but the Aristotelian method of classification would be a much better fit. He basically used kind and form, which are commonly translated into genus and species, but his definition was much looser and broader: Examples of forms were birds or fish, and examples of kinds were cranes or eagles. And that's basically how races are defined in many versions of D&D: Forms would be things like constructs or humanoids, while kinds would be orcs or warforged.

Quote from: Pat on January 27, 2021, 05:07:36 AM

Quote from: TJS on January 27, 2021, 12:00:43 AM
I thought race was a silly word in the 90s.

Every time I taught the game to someone I had to say "they say race, but they really mean species".

No, they don't. There are many ways to define species, but none of them involve creation by the gods, which is the traditional origin of most fantasy races, from Tolkien's to those in many D&D settings. Elves didn't evolve into their niche, they were created. Not to mention, their characteristics are more metaphorical than adaptive. Or the problems with things like reproduction, since not only are half-elves fertile and viable, but so are half-dragons.

Yes a big lore dump of lore wank is exactly what new players need.

Although wasn't 2e pretty big on the idea that gods gained their power from their believers?  So the believers presumably had to come first.  Really the gods were just giant parasitic entities.

Quote from: TJS on January 27, 2021, 05:40:03 AM

Quote from: Pat on January 27, 2021, 05:07:36 AM

Quote from: TJS on January 27, 2021, 12:00:43 AM
I thought race was a silly word in the 90s.

Every time I taught the game to someone I had to say "they say race, but they really mean species".

No, they don't. There are many ways to define species, but none of them involve creation by the gods, which is the traditional origin of most fantasy races, from Tolkien's to those in many D&D settings. Elves didn't evolve into their niche, they were created. Not to mention, their characteristics are more metaphorical than adaptive. Or the problems with things like reproduction, since not only are half-elves fertile and viable, but so are half-dragons.

Yes a big lore dump of lore wank is exactly what new players need.

Although wasn't 2e pretty big on the idea that gods gained their power from their believers?  So the believers presumably had to come first.  Really the gods were just giant parasitic entities.

What's a big dump of lore got to do with it? Robots aren't species, and if you scratch the surface even slightly, neither are elves.

And D&D's always been somewhat schizophrenic (in the incorrect use of that word) about the divine. Gygax wrote an article in Dragon in the late 1e era defining how gods get power points from worship, which in turn was probably based Lankhmar's mythology. The concept's become more popular since, for instance Pratchett's Small Gods, or how the gods' power was linked to worship during the Time of Troubles that kicked off 2e. But many interpretations also posit that gods originally or still have an independent existence, there's not always a clear split between god and powerful entities like demon or elemental lords or ladies, and even if gods gain power from worship, that doesn't necessarily mean worship created them. D&D's kitchen sink cosmology makes it difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions.

Quote from: Pat on January 27, 2021, 05:54:58 AMAnd D&D's always been somewhat schizophrenic (in the incorrect use of that word) about the divine. Gygax wrote an article in Dragon in the late 1e era defining how gods get power points from worship, which in turn was probably based Lankhmar's mythology. The concept's become more popular since, for instance Pratchett's Small Gods, or how the gods' power was linked to worship during the Time of Troubles that kicked off 2e. But many interpretations also posit that gods originally or still have an independent existence, there's not always a clear split between god and powerful entities like demon or elemental lords or ladies, and even if gods gain power from worship, that doesn't necessarily mean worship created them. D&D's kitchen sink cosmology makes it difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions.

And it even predates EGG's article in some ways. Star Trek's "Who Mourns For Adonis" implies that the Olympians needed worshipers, and... not to get into theology, but... Christian scripture states that if two Christians act together, then Christ will be among them... suggesting that divine intervention on Earth relied on human attention (remember, EGG was a JW).

In regards to the origins and independent actions of the demi-human "races"... I've always really seen the elfy-dwarfy motif as simply reflections of various human traits and tendencies. They're more fun if you rule your game as humanocentric and the demi-humans as strange and inscrutable NPCs.

Quote from: Semaj Khan on January 27, 2021, 07:44:05 AM

Quote from: Pat on January 27, 2021, 05:54:58 AMAnd D&D's always been somewhat schizophrenic (in the incorrect use of that word) about the divine. Gygax wrote an article in Dragon in the late 1e era defining how gods get power points from worship, which in turn was probably based Lankhmar's mythology. The concept's become more popular since, for instance Pratchett's Small Gods, or how the gods' power was linked to worship during the Time of Troubles that kicked off 2e. But many interpretations also posit that gods originally or still have an independent existence, there's not always a clear split between god and powerful entities like demon or elemental lords or ladies, and even if gods gain power from worship, that doesn't necessarily mean worship created them. D&D's kitchen sink cosmology makes it difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions.

And it even predates EGG's article in some ways. Star Trek's "Who Mourns For Adonis" implies that the Olympians needed worshipers, and... not to get into theology, but... Christian scripture states that if two Christians act together, then Christ will be among them... suggesting that divine intervention on Earth relied on human attention (remember, EGG was a JW).

In regards to the origins and independent actions of the demi-human "races"... I've always really seen the elfy-dwarfy motif as simply reflections of various human traits and tendencies. They're more fun if you rule your game as humanocentric and the demi-humans as strange and inscrutable NPCs.

I alluded to it, but didn't go into into detail: Nehwon seems to be the modern prototype for the idea that gods gain their power from their worshipers. And Leiber's stories were definitely one of the bigger influences on Gygax. "Lean Times in Lankhmar" is worth a read for anyone interested in the subject, as well as being a very entertaining story on its own.

And yes, the roots of the various demihuman races are clearly idealized humans. They're not races in the sense of peoples with distinct and fully-realized cultures, but reflections of a particular part of a human culture. Over time, different writers have expanded and extended the concept and added additional depth, but the origin isn't independently developed cultures or biological adaptations. A fantasy world based on something similar to the plethora of Homo species in Noven's Ringworld could be interesting, but it's not the way fantasy is typically handled.

All I gotta say is, anyone who rants on about Tolkien's elves being perfect and privileged and whatnot has never ever read about Feanor.

Seriously. There's a reason Mandos won't let Feanor reincarnate, after all.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 27, 2021, 08:27:01 AM
All I gotta say is, anyone who rants on about Tolkien's elves being perfect and privileged and whatnot has never ever read about Feanor.

Seriously. There's a reason Mandos won't let Feanor reincarnate, after all.

You mean the guy who was such an amazing craftsman, that the gods begged him for his greatest creations? And when he turned them down, one of the gods stole them, and then Feanor and his kin went and fucking killed the god to take them back? That ordinary, unprivileged guy?

Feanor may exemplify hubris, but he also exemplifies perfection and privilege.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbyDnjISpHM

I think he used to post here before he acquired TDS and drank the SJW Kool-Aid completely. So a DM is no longer allowed to set any boundaries or use any character creation system he wants or it's "Gatekeeping". He rants about the Kevin pushing Random character creation method yet you guessed it encourages Gatekeeping. So a player who knows that the DM plans to use a rpg that uses random character creation who gets a result they don't like can then accuse the DM of gatekeeping. It's one thing when a DM advertises as a player can take any class then at the last minute decides to use random character generation. Instead it's not the players fault or responsability for having chosen to join a game with rules he does not like it's gatekeeping.

Unfortunately these are the gamers Wotc insists on listening too.

Quote from: Brad on January 26, 2021, 10:29:27 PM

Quote from: RandyB on January 26, 2021, 10:02:26 PM
Emphasis added. This is the most important thing.

This just circled back to ye olde "some players just go out of their way to be assholes". So I'll say it again: when a new player starts off with a ridiculous concept, I immediately think they're just trying to be disruptive. People showing up with ten pages of backstory for a game they haven't even played yet: red flag. Same with all sorts of other crap like getting annoyed if you make them roll stats, won't let them use pregens, or refuse to allow some weird ability they found on an internet messageboard. Gigantic warning sign: insisting on playing chaotic-neutral no matter the character concept.

At this point in my life I have a limited amount of time to spend on gaming so I won't even entertain a whiff of this sort of horseshit. RPGs are about killing orcs and stealing their stuff, they're not about exploring what it means to be a transsexual lesbian elf or whatever the fuck the last weirdo I played with tried to pull out of their ass. No thanks.

Oh, I agree. The intersection of "special snowflake" and "asshole" approaches unity, especially these days.

All of these issues with the term "race" and racial abilities can all be easily solved if D&D just switches back to race-as-class. Something I've been trying to get them to do for a dozen years no. Just a selection of classes all balanced with one another. You wouldn't even need a spot on the character sheet for "Kin" or "Background" or "Species" or whatever term people think is least offensive at that point in time.