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Author Topic: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?  (Read 7028 times)

Kyle Aaron

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #15 on: May 22, 2021, 12:29:20 AM »
This is one of the reasons I like the incomplete games, like AD&D1e, Classic Traveller and so on - rules with no setting, or at most an implied setting. Because when you have a published setting it'll be warped by commercial (eg licensed ones, like the Firefly game which was based on the movie but not the tv series) or ideological nonsense.

But if you have your own setting then you can do whatever you want, like the Chinese bootleg toys - my favourite was the Thomas the Tank Engine Transformer. I don't want your stupid ideas, I have my own!
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SirFrog

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #16 on: May 22, 2021, 12:51:02 AM »
When did the drow become light purplish grey? Every image I’ve seen lately has this new color.

Omega

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #17 on: May 22, 2021, 07:14:25 AM »
When did the drow become light purplish grey? Every image I’ve seen lately has this new color.

Remember what I keep saying about how this woke cult is cyclic and what we are seeing now is nothing new? Well thats why there are purple drow because in the late 70s or early 90s version of this cult there was bitching about the drow being black and so we had a span of the purple and also  blue drow.

Zelen

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #18 on: May 22, 2021, 10:58:54 AM »
When did the drow become light purplish grey? Every image I’ve seen lately has this new color.

Hateful bigots at WotC believe that all people with dark skin are evil, therefore they are changing the Drow to no longer have dark skin.

It's weird how not only are dark skinned Drow stand-ins for Black people, but also Orcs are stand-ins for Black people. We're already starting to see a push to change demons & devils too, because reasonable people wouldn't stand up to these literally evil psychopaths.

Ghostmaker

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #19 on: May 22, 2021, 12:33:48 PM »
When did the drow become light purplish grey? Every image I’ve seen lately has this new color.

Hateful bigots at WotC believe that all people with dark skin are evil, therefore they are changing the Drow to no longer have dark skin.

It's weird how not only are dark skinned Drow stand-ins for Black people, but also Orcs are stand-ins for Black people. We're already starting to see a push to change demons & devils too, because reasonable people wouldn't stand up to these literally evil psychopaths.
Amusing, but... I think it has less to do with 'omg we can't make them evil because they are black' and more because that vantablack skin is really hard to use in art and it's really fucking boring.

So yeah, there's a lot of sins to be laid at WOTC's feet but drow with purple/gray skin tones aren't quite one of them.

Zelen

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #20 on: May 22, 2021, 02:00:05 PM »
Amusing, but... I think it has less to do with 'omg we can't make them evil because they are black' and more because that vantablack skin is really hard to use in art and it's really fucking boring.

So yeah, there's a lot of sins to be laid at WOTC's feet but drow with purple/gray skin tones aren't quite one of them.

I'm sure there's an element of that, but I doubt there would have been an art direction change if WotC didn't have their hateful religious zealotry in the mix.

FWIW I don't have a dog in this fight because no campaign I have ever played in or run has ever attempted to make use of Drow. The biggest exposure I have to these guys is in playing Baldur's Gate videogames and having read one Drizzt novel many years ago (I didn't even know it was actually D&D/Forgotten Realms).

The thing that I find objectionable is how this type of manipulation is going back and undermining the artistic and creative vision of people who made something that became organically popular. If I were R.A. Salvatore, for example, I'd be considering how to make WotC pay up for trying to rewrite important plot elements when Salvatore himself was probably the single most important creative vision for those plot elements.

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #21 on: May 22, 2021, 02:01:17 PM »
There is a neat french comic called elves. In it, Dark Elves are all born with a Demon that drives them to evil, even the noblest of them.
Dark Elves don't even start as Dark Elves. Other elves are just randomly born with this capacity for violence and causing suffering. In addition, it also ties their life shorter than normal, mutating all Dark Elves into mindless mutant monsters (but immortal ones) eventually.

Its more of a curse that passes through bloodline than a species thing (And Dark Elves are loathe to reproduce because their lives suck). I believe that was the same case with the Original Drow.

Not sure why that had to be undone.

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #22 on: May 22, 2021, 05:58:58 PM »
I'm not into dark elves, drow or any other D&D stuff, but even i've heard that the whole dark elf thing supposedly started with Elric Of Melnibone', is that true?

I also heard that Elric was the only member of his race that wasn't like totally evil, and he was....WHITE!!!! (AAAAIIIEEEEE! THE RACISM! IT BURNS US!)

Actually he was an albino with a weak metabolism, IIRC.

No i guess this means no stormbringer movie in today's world, i always wondered why they never made one. 

has rpg.net banned any mention of Moorcock and his works yet doe to his flagrant and blatant racism in making the only good member  of an evil race white? Have literary circles excommunicated moorcock and denounced all his works yet? i don't read or follow fantasy much at all, but being in games you can't help picking up references over the years and getting a little familiar with it all.

Dropbear

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #23 on: May 22, 2021, 06:33:11 PM »
I'm not into dark elves, drow or any other D&D stuff, but even i've heard that the whole dark elf thing supposedly started with Elric Of Melnibone', is that true?

I also heard that Elric was the only member of his race that wasn't like totally evil, and he was....WHITE!!!! (AAAAIIIEEEEE! THE RACISM! IT BURNS US!)

Actually he was an albino with a weak metabolism, IIRC.

No i guess this means no stormbringer movie in today's world, i always wondered why they never made one. 

has rpg.net banned any mention of Moorcock and his works yet doe to his flagrant and blatant racism in making the only good member  of an evil race white? Have literary circles excommunicated moorcock and denounced all his works yet? i don't read or follow fantasy much at all, but being in games you can't help picking up references over the years and getting a little familiar with it all.

I’ve never heard of this being a thing, Moorcock being declared racist because of Elric’s lack of pigmentation. Elric wasn’t exactly good, however, despite being the protagonist of one of several of Moorcock’s series about his Eternal Champions.
« Last Edit: May 22, 2021, 06:35:53 PM by Dropbear »

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #24 on: May 22, 2021, 09:20:38 PM »
I'm not into dark elves, drow or any other D&D stuff, but even i've heard that the whole dark elf thing supposedly started with Elric Of Melnibone', is that true?

I also heard that Elric was the only member of his race that wasn't like totally evil, and he was....WHITE!!!! (AAAAIIIEEEEE! THE RACISM! IT BURNS US!)

Actually he was an albino with a weak metabolism, IIRC.

No i guess this means no stormbringer movie in today's world, i always wondered why they never made one. 

has rpg.net banned any mention of Moorcock and his works yet doe to his flagrant and blatant racism in making the only good member  of an evil race white? Have literary circles excommunicated moorcock and denounced all his works yet? i don't read or follow fantasy much at all, but being in games you can't help picking up references over the years and getting a little familiar with it all.

I’ve never heard of this being a thing, Moorcock being declared racist because of Elric’s lack of pigmentation. Elric wasn’t exactly good, however, despite being the protagonist of one of several of Moorcock’s series about his Eternal Champions.

i'm amazed the ultraleft hasn't gone after him yet. Yes it's ridiculous, but so is the ultraleft. I mean  sure elric was at best an antihero type, but he was the protagonist and white, making him 'racist' in the eyes of the ultraleft. He was also, frankly, the best of his people and again, WHITE!- hence RACIST!!!!

I guess they'll get to him sometime. But you know the old saying "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" What if the ultraleft screams "RACISM!" at Moorcock and his fandom ignores them?


Spinachcat

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #25 on: May 22, 2021, 09:53:59 PM »
Morcock's Elric and his Melniboneans probably have more of a creative lineage to Warhammer's Dark Elves than initially to D&D's drow. But there's been lots of cross pollination between Warhammer & D&D over the decades in the various concepts of the drow.

Personally, I greatly prefer Warhammer's dark elves, mostly because the popularity of Drizzt has made the concept of "good drow" in such demand that the drow have become weaksauce villains. 

As for D&D's alleged popularity, I find that "infographic" very laughable. Note it's a breakdown of the "D&D community", and that's whatever WotC wants that to mean.

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #26 on: May 23, 2021, 03:21:23 AM »
You know WOTC wants to remind everyone of the Drow Matriarchy.  I'm sure that's their favorite part of the whole damn thing. 

Down with the Patriarchy, long live the Matriarchy!!!

As long as poontang is still available, who really cares?

I believe the argument against the Drow Matriarchy is that it's Evil and therefore some kind of knock against matriarchies.

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Ratman_tf

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #27 on: May 23, 2021, 03:34:52 AM »
Yeah, I remembered Eilistraee. I think the thing that might be different here is that pre-woke WotC all of the drow in the realms were nominally under Lloths thumb. But now, it seems to me anyway, that these new groups might not have had anything to do with the whole "drow pantheon" from the past. But....idk.

And I think this inforgraphic is kind of telling
https://gamerant.com/dungeons-and-dragons-infographic-2021/?utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_source=GR-FB-P&utm_campaign=GR-FB-P&fbclid=IwAR2gFcf2xfG89iNNYtwYxi5MozODa0KmuO7i94vn24KojbCmuDptB3FimWk
But I might be reading too much into it. But the age group I'm in (40+) really isn't their target audience anymore. Despite us supporting the company through those years. Again I might be over reacting.

I like to think that good product has a wide appeal. I also think that at some point, the marketing tail wags the dog, and companies start making bone headed decisions.
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jhkim

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #28 on: May 23, 2021, 04:53:07 AM »
There is a neat french comic called elves. In it, Dark Elves are all born with a Demon that drives them to evil, even the noblest of them.
Dark Elves don't even start as Dark Elves. Other elves are just randomly born with this capacity for violence and causing suffering. In addition, it also ties their life shorter than normal, mutating all Dark Elves into mindless mutant monsters (but immortal ones) eventually.

Its more of a curse that passes through bloodline than a species thing (And Dark Elves are loathe to reproduce because their lives suck). I believe that was the same case with the Original Drow.

Not sure why that had to be undone.

That was not the case with the original drow. They have a mythic origin story as how they separated from other elves, but they are a subrace just like others. It's most explicitly the case as of 1e Unearthed Arcana in 1985, when drow were allowed as player characters. They are handled like any other race, just with their own special abilities.

There was no alignment restriction for PC drow, or explanation that good-aligned PC drow characters lost the demon - only that they were outcast from drow society.

BoxCrayonTales

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Re: Any bets that WotC's next book will be about (woke) Drow?
« Reply #29 on: May 23, 2021, 09:01:28 AM »
Did WotC change the drow’s backstory about being cursed with dark skin?