I was just looking at D3 this morning and there is nothing there about the crow acquiring black skin through evilness. Their original description bears no resemblance to real world human  races.

Yesterday I read up on Fighting Fantasy dark elves and they appeared to have acquired dark skin from living underground. They were a lot more drow like than I recalled from the old game books.

Quote from: S'mon;1060430I was just looking at D3 this morning and there is nothing there about the crow acquiring black skin through evilness.

Correct, that was a later addition.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1060429My point was to make the drow villainous in a less cartoonish and racist manner.

The Drow are actually good at screening out fools from your table. Anyone ignorant enough to assume that fantasy underground elves with black skin are analagous to racism in our world is not a good fit for my group, which I prefer to be made up of adults who posses a base level of intellect and perspective.

Quote from: Haffrung;1060435The Drow are actually good at screening out fools from your table. Anyone ignorant enough to assume that fantasy underground elves with black skin are analagous to racism in our world is not a good fit for my group, which I prefer to be made up of adults who posses a base level of intellect and perspective.

Never thought of it like that so a good indicator of not a good fit with a group. I am also starting to see polite yet very firm and carefully worded ads for players that have "if your a SJW and easily offended snowflake we don't want you in our group" style posts. I don't blame Dms and player groups not wanting them in a existing group.

Why should SJW's think that Drow are problematic? Nobody in Drow society has pale skin (so 100% diversity), women run everything, and they realize that morality is a social construct. It's like SJW heaven.

Anyway, no, I don't find them problematic. Though I think I prefer Warhammer Druchii.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1060444Why should SJW's think that Drow are problematic? Nobody in Drow society has pale skin (so 100% diversity), women run everything, and they realize that morality is a social construct. It's like SJW heaven.

You would think they would not. Yet these same SJW think the classic Against the Giants module is highly racist. Giants=native americans, the npcs that hire you to exterminate them=white colonials. Giants at least those you fight are evil yet the SJWs would tunr a blind eye to that simply because they are trying to survive. By killing and sometimes eating the smaller races but dammit they should never have settled on Giant land!.

Quote from: sureshot;1060446You would think they would not. Yet these same SJW think the classic Against the Giants module is highly racist. Giants=native americans, the npcs that hire you to exterminate them=white colonials.

This sounds like a mental illness.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1060449This sounds like a mental illness.

I have mentioned it before I think a decent amount of the population suffers from some un-diagnosed form of mental illness. That or poor parenting with them just letting their children act out and do nothing because it might stunt their emotional growth. Or both imo. I was going home with my co-worker in the subway and neither of us gave the guy begging for cash money. He called my black worker in French "dirty immigrant". My co-worker has begun working out again and picture a fairly muscular 7 foot tall guy. Why would you insult the guy who by the way understands French. It's like they don't give a fuck or are mentally ill. Or both.

Quote from: ShieldWife;1060444Why should SJW's think that Drow are problematic? Nobody in Drow society has pale skin (so 100% diversity), women run everything, and they realize that morality is a social construct. It's like SJW heaven.

Anyway, no, I don't find them problematic. Though I think I prefer Warhammer Druchii.

/BIG BREATH

Because they're socially disassociated, and possessed of at best an ignorant view of history and passive-aggressive internal racism that pathologically distorts the few good things about Post-Modernism into a corrupt version, that forces them to look at the surface views of everything and justify those things via the notion that they are all equal and to do otherwise would place them in a hierarchy, but since hierarchies are all evil, and because they wish to believe hierarchies structurally promote "evil" by creating power-inequalities, it polarizes all things into a surface-view lacking all nuance and the inability to make simple distinctions because to do so creates the very hierarchies they have deemed EEEEVVVVIIIILLLL...

/GASP....

This is what leads them to perpetrating the actual racist/biggoted/hypocritical/unethical actions they claim of those not in their camp WHILE rendering those actions just because the ends justifies the means. A nice big snake eating its own tail as it poops.


/passes out from oxygen deprivation

Quote from: tenbones;1060453/BIG BREATH

Because they're socially disassociated, and possessed of at best an ignorant view of history and passive-aggressive internal racism that pathologically distorts the few good things about Post-Modernism into a corrupt version, that forces them to look at the surface views of everything and justify those things via the notion that they are all equal and to do otherwise would place them in a hierarchy, but since hierarchies are all evil, and because they wish to believe hierarchies structurally promote "evil" by creating power-inequalities, it polarizes all things into a surface-views lacking all nuance and the inability to make simple distinctions because to do so creates the very hierarchies they have deemed EEEEVVVVIIIILLLL....

/GASP....

This is what leads them to perpetrating the actual racist/biggoted/hypocritical/unethical actions they claim of those not in their camp WHILE rending those actions just because the ends justifies the means. A nice big snake eating its own tail as it poops.


/passes out from oxygen deprivation

https://coub.com/view/ozdizr

Quote from: ShieldWife;1060444Why should SJW's think that Drow are problematic?

Well, since you asked:

QuoteI think fundamentally, the issue with Drow is that they're a perfect storm of problematic tropes:

•"Always Evil" race
•Black skin = Evil
•Matriarchy = Evil
•Matriarchy = BDSM Fanservice
•Kink = Evil
•Black skin = result of curse

QuoteI think fundamentally, the issue with Drow is that they're a perfect storm of problematic tropes:

•"Always Evil" race
•Black skin = Evil
•Matriarchy = Evil
•Matriarchy = BDSM Fanservice
•Kink = Evil
•Black skin = result of curse

These are genuinely unpleasant tropes that even non-SJWs should find disturbing when taken together. Racism, sexism, objectification, kink-shaming, the list goes on.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1060465These are genuinely unpleasant tropes that even non-SJWs should find disturbing when taken together. Racism, sexism, objectification, kink-shaming, the list goes on.

But what if those things are my kink?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1060465These are genuinely unpleasant tropes that even non-SJWs should find disturbing when taken together. Racism, sexism, objectification, kink-shaming, the list goes on.

There are all sorts of "always evil" races in fantasy fiction and gaming - Mind Flayers, Ogres, Gnolls, etc. - and few people have any problem with them.

Some evil creatures have white skin. Some have red. Some have blue, or green, yellow, or grey. Some have black. And some black skinned monsters and humanoids are not evil. So black skin = evil in D&D is not true.

If 1 out of 20 evil fantasy races is matriarchal, and another 19 are patriarchal, this is somehow unfair or misogynist? Do all the evil races have to patriarchal?

The vague allusions to sexual kink with the drow are related to slavery and torture, which most people regard as evil.

The black skin = curse thing is dumb. It also shows when you have a game whose lore has been handled by dozens of people over 40+ years, you're going to get dumb stuff on occasion.

Quote from: tenbones;1060468But what if those things are my kink?

You hit the nail on the head regarding why this has persisted so long. It's a nerd turn-on.

This deserves a much more nuanced discussion. The primary problem is the "Evil! Evil! Evil!" part (which ties in a larger discussion on the absurdity of metaphysical evil), the objectification of women (but not men in the same context), and the whole Curse of Ham debacle. (I strongly doubt those things specifically are part of your kink.)

The popular image of the drow as dark-skinned elves in BDSM fetish wear with a matriarchal culture and different moral norms is not itself a prejudiced construct. It easily supports all kinds of stories, including romance novels of which there are many. You are not alone in that regard.

As a matter of fact, I read a rather fascinating series of erotic short stories about a tribe of Amazonian orcs who are really sexist against males of their own species (not surprising!) and exclusively reproduce with human men they capture and enslave (human women are just enslaved). Although it is ultimately female domination orc/human porn, the author takes the time to lay out the logic behind their beliefs and the day-to-day functioning of their culture. One of their customs is the long-term stockholm syndrome brainwashing of their human husband-slaves by forcing them to practice their customs and engage in their cultural norms including hunting (which echoes the real historical practice of first nations tribes sometimes adopting white prisoners during the wars of colonization). The Amazon orcs do not comically oppress men in some outlandish manner or serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of female sexuality, and even manage to avoid falling into the noble savage cliche that afflicts most attempts to write orcs with depth. They just exist in the fantasy world as one of many cultures.

By contrast, D&D depicts the drow in a very anti-feminist manner rather than thinking through the logic behind how their culture would function realistically. Rather than a simple reversal of the patriarchy or a unique take that accounts for the known differences in female psychology, the drow matriarchy is depicted as a cautionary tale about the dangers of female sexuality. The overarching narrative expects the adventurer (typically male) to overcome this terrible villain.