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QuoteDungeons & Dragons Fans Seek Removal of Oriental Adventures From Online Marketplace

(https://media.comicbook.com/2020/06/oriental-adventures-1226765.jpeg)

By CHRISTIAN HOFFER - June 29, 2020 09:56 am EDT

Asians Represents tabletop podcast, called on Wizards of the Coast to pull the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting book Oriental Adventures from the DMs Guild marketplace, noting that the book pushed a number of outdated Asian stereotypes. "When you buy [Oriental Adventures], you show [Wizards of the Coast] that you are okay with Asian people being represented by blatant stereotypes," Kwan wrote on Twitter. He also noted that by having Oriental Adventures available for sale, it shows consumers that these legacy products are to be consumed despite their use of dated and racist stereotypes. Kwan pointed out that having Oriental Adventures available for sale runs contrary to a recent statement recently released by the Dungeons & Dragons design team, which stressed that one of the explicit design goals of the current version of D&D was to depict humanity in "all its beautiful diversity."

Oriental Adventures was originally published by TSR (the original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons) back in 1985. It was the first D&D supplement to focus on a non-European inspired setting, and introduced the concept of "non-weapon" proficiencies, which are now a critical part of the game. While the book was a best-seller at the time, none of its writers were Asian and the book has been heavily criticized by Asian fans and designers for its liberal use of stereotypes of various Asian cultures and by mixing those cultures together to form one homogenized fictional culture meant to represent an entire continent's worth of cultures. Dungeons & Dragons released an entire line of adventures based on Oriental Adventures, along with a campaign setting detailing the world of Kara-Tur, which features regions based on many different Asian cultures. Dungeons & Dragons also released an Oriental Adventures book for its 3rd Edition ruleset focused on Rokugan, which traditionally is used as the setting of Legend of the Five Rings.

Dungeons & Dragons' current Fifth Edition ruleset makes only passing references to a handful of the concepts found in Oriental Adventures, and it's been nearly 20 years since D&D last tried to navigate the outdated stereotypes baked into the world of Kara-Tur. Despite this, Oriental Adventures is a "Mithral Bestseller" on the DMs Guild, meaning that over 2,500 people have purchased the old supplement, and that Wizards of the Coast has received 50% of the profits from those sales. Even the use of the word "Oriental" is problematic, with many considering its use when describing people or cultures to be offensive.

Kwan goes into more detail about the problematic elements of Oriental Adventures as part of the "Asians Read" series on his Asians Represent Twitch channel. The episodes discussing Oriental Adventures can be found here.

Quote from: DocJones;1137002The title of the article says "Dungeons & Dragons Fans", when clearly they are not.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137006It's a podcast of two people that are, to the surprise of no one, making a BDSM RPG called Honey and Hot Wax. Oh, and they, of course, were nominated for a 2019 Ennie award.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137006It's a podcast of two people that are, to the surprise of no one, making a BDSM RPG called Honey and Hot Wax. Oh, and they, of course, were nominated for a 2019 Ennie award.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137006It's a podcast of two people that are, to the surprise of no one, making a BDSM RPG called Honey and Hot Wax. Oh, and they, of course, were nominated for a 2019 Ennie award.

Quote from: Arkansan;1137029Imagine my shock. What is it with SJW's and weird sex stuff?

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137006It's a podcast of two people that are, to the surprise of no one, making a BDSM RPG called Honey and Hot Wax. Oh, and they, of course, were nominated for a 2019 Ennie award.

Quote from: Omega;1137052What cliches and stereotypes would these be?

OA draws heavily from Japanese and Chinese myth and movies and presents them exactly as Japan and China oft do.

Let me guess. Japan and China are racist for depicting fantasy Japan and China?

QuoteHONOR

Power, wealth, and position--all these mean nothing to a character of the oriental world if he is without honor. Honor is a reflection of his character and the character of his family.
(...)
Oriental honor is different from the honor of a paladin or cavalier. It is not a judgement of good and evil. Characters with high honor are not necessarily good and those with low honor are not necessarily evil. A cruel villain can possess high honor and a heroic samurai, through unfortunate circumstances, might possess low honor. Honor is more a measure of the deeds accomplished by both the character and his family clan. It reflects obedience, loyalty, talent, and success, qualities that can be held by any character regardless of alignment.

QuotePersons of high rank, because their responsibilities are greater, often receive special considerations. Actions which are crimes for the commoner are often not if committed by one of a warrior class. Thus, in lands such as Kozakura, a samurai has the right to cut down a commoner he deems to be insulting or truculent without being charged with murder.

Quote from: jhkim;1137068I have some criticisms of Oriental Adventures, but I don't see why it shouldn't be kept out for sale.

Quote from: jhkim;1137068I don't support removing Oriental Adventures from sale, but this is wrong. I've seen a number of Japanese and Korean RPGs, and they are vastly different than OA in tone and portrayal.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1137067Well, when they want to take it out - we just put it back in. Fuck 'em!

Now, I just want to make an Oriental OSR game called Ninjas, Hookers and Hentai.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1137070Unfortunately, like the conservative justice warriors here whinging about something maybe not being produced because of SJWs, they are lazy and completely without initiative or resolve, and will produce nothing except whinges.

Quote from: tenbones;1137014Wait til they find out the Kara-Tur boxset was written by a black man...

Quote from: SHARK;1137040How about some of these executives and high-placed game designers just tell these whining bitches to "Shut the fuck up, sobbing bitches! The books stay the way they are. End of story. Whine some more, and you're done. You can collect your final check on Friday."

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1137083Whatever happened with D&D being banned for Satan worship? Now it's being banned for not being gay enough.

Quote from: tenbones;1137064It's racist to them because 1) white people wrote it.

That's it.

I'm fairly confident in their own eyes they couldn't do better given the point of their outrage has nothing to do with racism, but reflexive need to call out blasphemy wherever possible.

Quote from: tenbones;1137082Don't worry - some moron will say "Orient" is racist... and it should be "Asian"...

Nevermind they're just Roman and Greek for the same thing respectively. But you know... white supremacy.

I love Oriental Adventure. It's not perfect, but dammit it was pretty seminal in introducing a lot of stuff I loved about D&D.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137094I don't understand your point here. Conservatives can't be upset about Oriental Adventures potentially being pulled from DTRPG because they haven't written their own asian RPG supplement?

Quote from: Tyberious Funk;1137107I think you are missing his point...

The people complaining about OA are never the ones that create an Asian-inspired game that meets their own standards of acceptability, they just tear down the work of others.

In pretty much the same way that conservatives like to bitch and moan about the SJW taking away the books they love, rather than actually producing anything themselves.

IMHO, it's a fair point... it's a heck of a lot easier to criticise something than it is to lead by example and produce something that meets your own expectations.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137094I don't understand your point here. Conservatives can't be upset about Oriental Adventures potentially being pulled from DTRPG because they haven't written their own asian RPG supplement?

Quote from: Tyberious Funk;1137107IMHO, it's a fair point... it's a heck of a lot easier to criticise something than it is to lead by example and produce something that meets your own expectations.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137101Oh the poor asians, always exploited!

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1137110In this particular example. the conservatives aren't trying to cancel anything the SJWs are consuming. That's the damn point.

QuoteThey can read all the politically woke garbage they like. I'll mock it, but I'll never say they shouldn't be able to sell or buy it.

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1137050I was always way more interested in horrible cliches and racial stereotypes concerning Europeans.

Quote from: Anselyn;11371257th Sea?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1137111The rpg CJWs complain, the rpg SJWs complain, and in each case the answer is the same: if you don't like it, produce your own better product, and put it up for sale. .

Quote from: Tyberious Funk;1137118But conservatives are complaining that a company shouldn't be able to do whatever they like with their own product.

Quote from: Arkansan;1137029Imagine my shock. What is it with SJW's and weird sex stuff?

Quote from: Lynn;1137039I can't say I was ever impressed with Oriental Adventures or many other RPG products that just jumbled together a mix of badly researched tropes from different parts of Asia. The Pathfinder "Asia" stuff is worse. I think a lot of them just copied off of each other and then just duplicated their references.

Quote from: Dracones;1137100That was the Satanic Panic. This is the Racism Panic. Basically the same thing, just a different coat of paint. These sorts of mass hysteria, media driven events seem to come around every 30 years. So just to keep your expectations up, expect another one of these purity purges if you live that long.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1137042*frantically searches for old Oriental Adventurers hardbound...fails to find it*

"NOOOOOOO!!!" anakin-vader.mp3



I bet they're also fans of Monte Cook's Guide to BDSM, erm... I mean Consent in Gaming guide (written by a woman who's into BDSM).

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1137083Whatever happened with D&D being banned for Satan worship? Now it's being banned for not being gay enough.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137103It's still a fantasy world, seems fairly respectful of asian culture, it didn't portray asians as a bunch of idiots after all, it wasn't derogatory. As for being inaccurate, oriental adventures describes a fictional world, in order for it to be accurate, that fictional world would have to exist.

How would you like the idea of female samurai, would that be inaccurate?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1137111I'm referring to other threads, where people are complaining that this or that writer was "cancelled", or their works pulled from some publisher's website. In those I responded that the best way to deal with that was to go ahead and publish anyway - never before in history has it been as easy to publish things as today. The CJWs responded only with whinging; anyone complaining today needs to look at the obstacles Gygax overcame to publish his first rpg. Hint: he had to do more than upload a pdf to a website for free.

The rpg CJWs complain, the rpg SJWs complain, and in each case the answer is the same: if you don't like it, produce your own better product, and put it up for sale.


The Funk gets it. He's a smart guy, that's why we used to game with him.

Quote from: Warder;1137123Whats next? I dont want to give examples i could think of because it might give them ideas

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1137179If people are concerned about content, it is much better to persuade readers about their positions, than get the material removed using social media pressure (which doesn't even seem like an honest barometer of public sentiment).

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137184Like I said earlier. This isn't about education or anything like that. They simply do not want WOTC to profit from "racism". Preventing people from buying OA legitimately is their entire goal.

https://twitter.com/danielhkwan/status/1277239086072422400

It's an effective tactic. If RPG companies can be pressured into only making woke products, then normal people can't vote with their wallets as they'll have no non-woke alternative. Of course, people can just walk away from the RPG industry just like they did for comics, but that doesn't seem matter to them.

Quote from: Tyberious Funk;1137118In this particular example?  No, you are right.  But conservatives are complaining that a company shouldn't be able to do whatever they like with their own product.  

QuoteBut you are suggesting that the SJW can't choose to not sell a product that they've already produced.  Unless you are suggesting that WotC and DTRPG are in fact not SJW companies.

Quote from: Melan;1137192Do note that their end goal is "firing the fans" - i.e. removing existing "problematic" gamers from the hobby, and replacing them with an entirely new, presumably more politically acceptable demographic. This idea emerged on RPGNet and smaller indie forums in the late 2000s, and has been simmering in the background ever since. The assumption is that this is socially desirable, and no big loss business-wise, since the new fans will be diverse, hip, and more numerous. ("Go woke, go broke" is the opposite hypothesis).

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1137194My argument is that the Asian podcast that is calling for this ban are a small minority who do not necessarily represent the larger base of consumers, and are operating from an ideological position with a warped view of reality.

In the end, WOTC can burn all of their TSR products and delete all the digital copies and post a picture on their website of a dog pissing on Gary Gyxax's grave. I think those would be terrible ideas, and I'll talk about it as long as I'm able.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1137194My argument is that the Asian podcast that is calling for this ban are a small minority who do not necessarily represent the larger base of consumers, and are operating from an ideological position with a warped view of reality.

In the end, WOTC can burn all of their TSR products and delete all the digital copies and post a picture on their website of a dog pissing on Gary Gyxax's grave. I think those would be terrible ideas, and I'll talk about it as long as I'm able.

I guess I should put it in my sig, since I seem to have to explain it over and over again. Just because someone has a right to do something, doesn't mean it's a very good idea.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137184Like I said earlier. This isn't about education or anything like that. They simply do not want WOTC to profit from "racism". Preventing people from buying OA legitimately is their entire goal.

https://twitter.com/danielhkwan/status/1277239086072422400

It's an effective tactic. If RPG companies can be pressured into only making woke products, then normal people can't vote with their wallets as they'll have no non-woke alternative. Of course, people can just walk away from the RPG industry just like they did for comics, but that doesn't seem matter to them.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137199When do the copyrights expire? Maybe there ought to be a rule that if the owner of a copyright deliberately suppresses his work, he loses the copyright and it goes into the public domain. The purpose of a copyright is so the owner can earn money off of it, if he refuses to earn money, and simply owns it to suppress it, he should lose the copyright as the purpose of copyrights is not to suppress free speech.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137184Like I said earlier. This isn't about education or anything like that. They simply do not want WOTC to profit from "racism". Preventing people from buying OA legitimately is their entire goal.

https://twitter.com/danielhkwan/status/1277239086072422400

It's an effective tactic. If RPG companies can be pressured into only making woke products, then normal people can't vote with their wallets as they'll have no non-woke alternative. Of course, people can just walk away from the RPG industry just like they did for comics, but that doesn't seem matter to them.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1137201Well, that's a whole nother can of worms, and I'm no expert on copyright law, or how such a situation could or would be enforced.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1137201Well, that's a whole nother can of worms, and I'm no expert on copyright law, or how such a situation could or would be enforced.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137202Well you know, if they don't want to profit from "racism" they could always forfeit their copyright to public domain so anyone can publish it. The purpose of a copyright is not to suppress certain written works but to profit from them, if they chose not to profit, then they should give up their copyright and then their conscious will be clear because they won't be earning a profit from it.

Quote from: Melan;1137221Remember: these people are bookburners. Perhaps cowardly ones who have not lit up a pile of forbidden literature yet, but the intent is there.

(https://66.media.tumblr.com/a74aaf9e9d378934900c42f4290fbdcf/256add0fb9eb3c37-65/s2048x3072/19ad6ce62e6a9f5ce3d2e3c2d62d01a7ee422886.jpg)

Sure, at this point, at least a few Mensheviks are raising concerns about going this far. But RPGNet is a pretty Menshevik place all things considered.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137199When do the copyrights expire? Maybe there ought to be a rule that if the owner of a copyright deliberately suppresses his work, he loses the copyright and it goes into the public domain. The purpose of a copyright is so the owner can earn money off of it, if he refuses to earn money, and simply owns it to suppress it, he should lose the copyright as the purpose of copyrights is not to suppress free speech.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1137201Well, that's a whole nother can of worms, and I'm no expert on copyright law, or how such a situation could or would be enforced.

Quote from: Razor 007;1137230All of this drama, over the stats for a Katana?

My goodness, couldn't they find something better to whine about?  Famine, poverty, the size of sodas in New York?

Quote from: Melan;1137192Do note that their end goal is "firing the fans" - i.e. removing existing "problematic" gamers from the hobby, and replacing them with an entirely new, presumably more politically acceptable demographic. This idea emerged on RPGNet and smaller indie forums in the late 2000s, and has been simmering in the background ever since. The assumption is that this is socially desirable, and no big loss business-wise, since the new fans will be diverse, hip, and more numerous. ("Go woke, go broke" is the opposite hypothesis).

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137199When do the copyrights expire? Maybe there ought to be a rule that if the owner of a copyright deliberately suppresses his work, he loses the copyright and it goes into the public domain. The purpose of a copyright is so the owner can earn money off of it, if he refuses to earn money, and simply owns it to suppress it, he should lose the copyright as the purpose of copyrights is not to suppress free speech.

Quote from: estar;1137211One problem with using terms like Oriental, Far East, etc, is their lack of precision. Thanks to the explosion of interest in the culture and history of many Asian countries like Japan, China, and Korea, we have a better idea of what makes each distinct including their myths and legends. Another it is long association with institutions that were in existence during the age of imperialism in Asia.

Quote from: Brad;1137241This is pure gibberish...it's almost like you don't even know what Asia actually means.

Quote from: trechriron;1137243Huh? It sounds like he knows exactly what it means.

Quote from: trechriron;1137246OA shouldn't be banned. No books or movies should be banned. If you know the content is going to bother you, just avoid it. This "nanny state" bullshit makes me ashamed of being liberal.

Quote from: ZetaRidley;1137222That image is disturbing. It'slegitamately disturbing that there are entire swaths of people that believe that always feeling comfortable are the only things that matter in life, and are willing to give up everything for that.

Quote from: Brad;1137241This is pure gibberish...it's almost like you don't even know what Asia actually means.

Quote from: jhkim;1137235In general, I have no problem with some companies marketing to liberal gamers, some companies marketing to conservative gamers, and some companies marketing more broadly. I think all three are viable, and sales will work out.

But Oriental Adventures should remain for sale regardless of the focus of current marketing. If they feel strongly about it, they can package it together with a commentary or critique. But just removing it from sale blocks people even from critiquing it.

As a parallel, a year or two ago, I had to jump through some hoops to watch the movie "Song of the South" with my son. Disney had pulled it from sale a while ago, so I had to collect it from pirate sites online. That's crap. It should be available to see in its original form.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1137257If you think this is crap, the same people are doing a critical review of...
Al Qadim
Currently on the Radar to follow Al Qadim
Kindred of the East
L5R
Rifts:China/Mythic China
Feng Shui

451 has begun

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1137194In the end, WOTC can burn all of their TSR products and delete all the digital copies and post a picture on their website of a dog pissing on Gary Gyxax's grave.

Quote from: Melan;1137263Oh! Pray tell, whatever happened to "It is okay to enjoy problematic things"?

Whoops!

Turned out that was a LIE... like every other LIE these LYING LIARS have LIED.

"Never negotiate with terrorists. You'll only encourage more acts of terror.

Quote from: Melan;1137263Oh! Pray tell, whatever happened to "It is okay to enjoy problematic things"?

Whoops!

Turned out that was a LIE... like every other LIE these LYING LIARS have LIED.

Quote from: Brad;1137260I'm flagging this post so Pundit can look at this thread...I know he doesn't want politics on the site, but I don't think that's going to be remotely possible given the utter fucking retardation that is going on in the world.

Quote from: Myrdin Potter;1137290Is there an actual list of specific examples of what the latest outrage is complaining about?

QuoteHONOR

Power, wealth, and position--all these mean nothing to a character of the oriental world if he is without honor. Honor is a reflection of his character and the character of his family.
(...)
Oriental honor is different from the honor of a paladin or cavalier. It is not a judgement of good and evil. Characters with high honor are not necessarily good and those with low honor are not necessarily evil. A cruel villain can possess high honor and a heroic samurai, through unfortunate circumstances, might possess low honor. Honor is more a measure of the deeds accomplished by both the character and his family clan. It reflects obedience, loyalty, talent, and success, qualities that can be held by any character regardless of alignment.

QuotePersons of high rank, because their responsibilities are greater, often receive special considerations. Actions which are crimes for the commoner are often not if committed by one of a warrior class. Thus, in lands such as Kozakura, a samurai has the right to cut down a commoner he deems to be insulting or truculent without being charged with murder.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1137289Oriental Adventures is based on silly stereotypes from movies and comics and pop culture rather than real history and culture.

So is the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk.

Why aren't European-descended people complaining about the stereotyping of Medieval Europe in those settings, which is JUST AS RIDICULOUS AND FULL OF INACCURACIES as OE is to Asia.

As others pointed out, the real answer here is that if you want historically and culturally accurate Asian settings for D&D, which I agree would be utterly awesome, you should do as I did for Europe (and, for that matter, India) and WRITE a historically and culturally accurate setting.

On the other hand if what you want is to show off your totalitarianism through book banning, then what you ought to do is go fucking find someone to beat you to death to the great benefit of humanity.

Quote from: jhkim;1137303The original article links to a series of video logs. But they're over twenty hours of video (!?!?!). I haven't watched them.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbQUmmaVBxqob5bR9O4nggup8mhxEsJd5

That said, I did post two examples of what I personally thought of as stereotypes in Post #23 (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?42271-Now-they-are-coming-for-your-old-rulebooks&p=1137068&viewfull=1#post1137068). The first was from the section on honor:



So, a European knight's honor is about being good -- but Oriental honor is not. None of the native Japanese RPGs that I've seen have a point system for honor like this. Honor was important in medieval Japan -- but it was important in medieval Europe too! It's a broadly important concept across cultures.

My other example was this one from the section on law:



Again, this did happen in historical medieval Japan -- but again, it also happened medieval Europe -- and yet you don't find this characterization in standard D&D. In standard AD&D, paladins and cavaliers are generally embodiments of good. They don't cut down commoners for insulting them. But in Oriental Adventures, an honorable samurai isn't idealized in that way.

Quote from: jhkim;1137303The original article links to a series of video logs. But they're over twenty hours of video (!?!?!). I haven't watched them.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbQUmmaVBxqob5bR9O4nggup8mhxEsJd5

That said, I did post two examples of what I personally thought of as stereotypes in Post #23 (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?42271-Now-they-are-coming-for-your-old-rulebooks&p=1137068&viewfull=1#post1137068). The first was from the section on honor:



So, a European knight's honor is about being good -- but Oriental honor is not. None of the native Japanese RPGs that I've seen have a point system for honor like this. Honor was important in medieval Japan -- but it was important in medieval Europe too! It's a broadly important concept across cultures.

My other example was this one from the section on law:



Again, this did happen in historical medieval Japan -- but again, it also happened medieval Europe -- and yet you don't find this characterization in standard D&D. In standard AD&D, paladins and cavaliers are generally embodiments of good. They don't cut down commoners for insulting them. But in Oriental Adventures, an honorable samurai isn't idealized in that way.

Quote from: jhkim;1137303The original article links to a series of video logs. But they're over twenty hours of video (!?!?!). I haven't watched them.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbQUmmaVBxqob5bR9O4nggup8mhxEsJd5

That said, I did post two examples of what I personally thought of as stereotypes in Post #23 (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?42271-Now-they-are-coming-for-your-old-rulebooks&p=1137068&viewfull=1#post1137068). The first was from the section on honor:



So, a European knight's honor is about being good -- but Oriental honor is not. None of the native Japanese RPGs that I've seen have a point system for honor like this. Honor was important in medieval Japan -- but it was important in medieval Europe too! It's a broadly important concept across cultures.

My other example was this one from the section on law:



Again, this did happen in historical medieval Japan -- but again, it also happened medieval Europe -- and yet you don't find this characterization in standard D&D. In standard AD&D, paladins and cavaliers are generally embodiments of good. They don't cut down commoners for insulting them. But in Oriental Adventures, an honorable samurai isn't idealized in that way.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1137280they can certainly make this forum the very last place you can speak about anything unapproved

Quote from: EOTB;1137321[ATTACH=CONFIG]4629[/ATTACH]

I made my peace a long time ago with exile from the commercial hobby; of the fan aspects of gamerdom.  I'd suggest everyone do the same.  This isn't being defeatist, it's moving to the rebuilding stage.  The judge decreed your ex gets the '63 stingray and the title is signed over.  They don't like the car, they don't need the money, and they're posting a new pic on facebook every day where it's a little closer to the cliff they're going to dump it over just for spite.  Mourning in advance and dreading the sea getting clearer in the background each day isn't going to help you; it just makes it more delicious for them.  They know you're watching, hate it, and can't do a damn thing about it.

Every turn of the screw has a psychological aspect.  If you're not a majority and need a handful of people to push you over that mark, make your opponents choose between their preferred identity and their principles.  Sure, a lot of people won't go for it.  But if even a quarter decide that shutting up with a membership card to the "official" hobby intact is better than giving up their joy in belonging and the investment of decades of their lives...instant majority.  The culture war is being fought in detail now that attrition brings victory.  Or do you think NASCAR was organic?  Just lots of people who have problems with the recent past but also loved the smell of burning rubber on the brickyard?  Each and every identity-hobby they can wormtongue forces a choice on a follower-group who never considered a choice would have to be made.  And they only need a sliver from each to choose their invested identity.  The snowball gets bigger.  

The accountants are telling the bosses that only one group will scorch-earth their business concern.  And it isn't you.  The calculations are that 67% of you will buy anyway, and just complain.  

And there's no hypocrisy here...if I give someone a pretext, and they call it a hypocrisy - it's probably not going to dent my feelings because they're telling me that they bought in and want what they thought they were buying.  It's begging for another turn of the screw.

To go back to my first analogy, you really have to treat this like that significant other who's decided to use you without giving a shit about what you care about.  There's two choices and a forlorn hope.  Either dump them because they deserve it, or; hover over their newsfeed hating-expecting each new pic uploaded (that proves you were right!), or; or keep hoping they'll wake up, and realize how wonderful you really are - how much time you invested and all that.  But it is not giving up to get out.  Especially when they got the deed to the house.  

Look - they can't take gaming away from you.  The OGL saw to that.  But each of you will have to decide which is more important to you; being a gamer in the mainstream, and comfort, or the alternative.

Quote from: Brad;1137175pretty soon they'll be dragging you out of your house and burning your copies of OA. It'll happen.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137319My wife is European, but she can't tell you much about medeaval European combat, she doesn't have a sword or a suit of Armor, so I'm not sure she would be the person you'd want to ask.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137199When do the copyrights expire? Maybe there ought to be a rule that if the owner of a copyright deliberately suppresses his work, he loses the copyright and it goes into the public domain. The purpose of a copyright is so the owner can earn money off of it, if he refuses to earn money, and simply owns it to suppress it, he should lose the copyright as the purpose of copyrights is not to suppress free speech.

Quote from: EOTB;1137321Look - they can't take gaming away from you.  The OGL saw to that.  But each of you will have to decide which is more important to you; being a gamer in the mainstream, and comfort, or the alternative.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1137332You're meant to roleplay in a fantasy world, Braddicums, not live in one.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1137289Oriental Adventures is based on silly stereotypes from movies.

Quote from: EOTB;1137321Look - they can't take gaming away from you.  The OGL saw to that.

Quote from: EOTB;1137321But each of you will have to decide which is more important to you; being a gamer in the mainstream, and comfort, or the alternative.

Quote from: Omega;1137338Again. How the hell is it a stereotype when a movie is made by asians about their own fantasys, legends and history?

Quote from: Brad;1137175This is the attitude that allows these retards to get their way. I know you think you're morally superior for not allowing yourself to be bothered with such trivialities, but pretty soon they'll be dragging you out of your house and burning your copies of OA. It'll happen.

Quote from: jhkim;1137274I've said that before, and I still mean it. I disagree with the article calling for OA to be taken off sales. There are a lot of other liberals who disagree too.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137204Copyrights are to encourage the writing and printing of books, not surpress them. If the owner does not use his copyright over a certain period of time, then copyright law is not serving the purpose of encouraging the free flow of information, then there should be a law where the copyright owner loses his copyright. This is comparable to a broadcaster that owns the right to broadcast on a certain frequency but does not use it in order to surpress competing radio stations.

Quote from: estar;1137211The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creation of creative arts by giving creators the exclusive right over how copies are made and distributed. For more this is a mean of profiting from one's own creative efforts.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1137362For me the two biggest issues I have with this is 1) the call to remove the book (I consider that a form of censorship) and 2) the notion that you have to accept assumptions of the criticisms going in (for instance, Said's ideas) and that you have to accept the criticisms as well. I think there needs to be more room for people to disagree about these things.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1137357I think Pundit is thinking about how it also draws on western media depictions like Shogun and many of the movies that came out of the ninja craze (there were plenty of Chinese and Japanese movies about Ninja, but lots of American films too).

Quote from: GameDaddy;1137372Also, pretty sure I would enjoy sitting in on a game or mini-campaign in your OA campaign setting. Say... didn't you write your own campaign supplement or book for the OSR?

Quote from: oggsmash;1137373The Shaw brothers are not American.   Kurasawa is not American.  Their stereotypes are WAY over the top compared to what is presented in American Media.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1137365Will they go after something like Feng Shuie next? Or are they just going for larger companies like WotC (or white wolf) because they will always bend the knee? Basically, where does this censorship actually end?

It seems bizarre to go after a product like OA as it was a product of it's time, and has nothing to do with the more recent lines of D&D. It's just part of the histrionics of their portfolio.

I also think that the 'intention' behind a product is very important. I mean, if Lovecraft produced such a book (hypothetically) then you could say that it was intentionally racist. Given his background, but you can't apply the same intent of the author(s).

Quote from: CRKrueger;1137377Daniel Kwan and the others who did the video of Oriental Adventures have moved on to Al Qadim.  

Quote from: GameDaddy;1137372Also, pretty sure I would enjoy sitting in on a game or mini-campaign in your OA campaign setting. Say.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1137377Daniel Kwan and the others who did the video of Oriental Adventures have moved on to Al Qadim.  They put up a poll of what games to do next and the list was made up of...
Kindred of the East
L5R
Rifts:China/Mythic China
Feng Shui

L5R had the highest votes on the poll, so expect that to follow Al Qadim I guess.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1137332You're meant to roleplay in a fantasy world, Braddicums, not live in one.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1137006It's a podcast of two people that are, to the surprise of no one, making a BDSM RPG called Honey and Hot Wax. Oh, and they, of course, were nominated for a 2019 Ennie award.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1137389Looks like a different group of people at asiansread are doing Al Qadim.  Looks like people of middle-eastern descent and a red headed British white chick who says she's an LGBTQ+PoC.
https://twitter.com/EvilCleverDog/status/1275111601776087041 (https://twitter.com/EvilCleverDog/status/1275111601776087041)

Daniel Kwan and bunch have indeed moved on to L5R.
https://twitter.com/aznsrepresent/status/1276607143538556930 (https://twitter.com/aznsrepresent/status/1276607143538556930)

Quote from: RPGPundit;1137289As others pointed out, the real answer here is that if you want historically and culturally accurate Asian settings for D&D, which I agree would be utterly awesome, you should do as I did for Europe (and, for that matter, India) and WRITE a historically and culturally accurate setting.

On the other hand if what you want is to show off your totalitarianism through book banning, then what you ought to do is go fucking find someone to beat you to death to the great benefit of humanity.

Quote from: estar;1137393Correct if I am wrong but doesn't the hobby's interest in Asian fantasy stem from US and Europe learning about and appreciating films and shows originating in Japan and Hong Kong? Starting in the 70s and picking up steam in the 80s?

I was looking at some popular media lists and noticed that many tropes and stock characters that RPGs were using first appeared in films originating in Japan, Hong Kong, and other Asian countries.

Usually the scenario that is painted is one where something western become popular and overwhelms local culture. But I distinctly remember this being a case where things originating in Asia becoming popular within our culture. Not just fantasy but a lot of things that were done in film and manga.

Quote from: jhkim;1137404At the time in the early 1980s, I think the majority of Americans were familiar only with the U.S. derivatives, not with the Hong Kong and Japanese originals. i.e. A lot more people watched "Green Hornet" or "Kung Fu" on TV than watched the Shaw Brothers movies on video. There was some cross-over, like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (produced by Warner Brothers) or Jackie Chan in The Big Brawl -- but I think the vast majority of exposure was through American sources. You had to go to specialty shops in order to find the originals. Years later, in the early 1990s, I remember going down to New York Chinatown in order to find videos of original Hong Kong movies, which I couldn't find in regular outlets.

Quote from: jhkim;1137404At the time in the early 1980s, I think the majority of Americans were familiar only with the U.S. derivatives, not with the Hong Kong and Japanese originals. i.e. A lot more people watched "Green Hornet" or "Kung Fu" on TV than watched the Shaw Brothers movies on video. There was some cross-over, like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (produced by Warner Brothers) or Jackie Chan in The Big Brawl -- but I think the vast majority of exposure was through American sources. You had to go to specialty shops in order to find the originals. Years later, in the early 1990s, I remember going down to New York Chinatown in order to find videos of original Hong Kong movies, which I couldn't find in regular outlets.

Quote from: jhkim;1137404At the time in the early 1980s, I think the majority of Americans were familiar only with the U.S. derivatives, not with the Hong Kong and Japanese originals. i.e. A lot more people watched "Green Hornet" or "Kung Fu" on TV than watched the Shaw Brothers movies on video. There was some cross-over, like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon (produced by Warner Brothers) or Jackie Chan in The Big Brawl -- but I think the vast majority of exposure was through American sources. You had to go to specialty shops in order to find the originals. Years later, in the early 1990s, I remember going down to New York Chinatown in order to find videos of original Hong Kong movies, which I couldn't find in regular outlets.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1137407In Dragon #315 (the "Campaign Classics" issue), the Kara-Tur section has a sidebar where Jeff Grubb reminisces about how Zeb Cook was one of those who actually did track down the original material in specialty outlets--no mean feat for a man in rural Wisconsin in the mid-80s! And he's hold viewing parties for the TSR staff to expose them to it.

  Broadening their horizons? Or cultural appropriation? ;)

Quote from: oggsmash;1137416All this is simply Critical theory now coming to games.  It has jack to do with offensive, because the whole point of critical theory is to find offensive in any existing structure, period.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1137377Daniel Kwan and the others who did the video of Oriental Adventures have moved on to Al Qadim.  They put up a poll of what games to do next and the list was made up of...
Kindred of the East
L5R
Rifts:China/Mythic China
Feng Shui

L5R had the highest votes on the poll, so expect that to follow Al Qadim I guess.

Quote from: jhkim;1137420Why not both? ;)

But seriously, that's cool about Zeb Cook. Again, I support Oriental Adventures remaining in print, and I don't think the authors should be called out as bigots. At the same time, that doesn't mean that I can't criticize OA and the choices they made.

Quote from: Rhiannon;1137421I doubt many of these kids have read let alone understood Horkeimer or Adorno. Marcuse, whose closet Stalinism Horkeimer and Adorno detested, would be a more accurate frame of reference.

Quote from: Lynn;1137409So much of the argumentation by these particular SJWs seems to derive from their sense of ownership over history and historic material, and that individuals with a race or ethnic or familial history somehow 'own' it and can deny others use or even comment of it. It fits very neatly into the same cluster of SJW nonsense like cultural appropriation (invented ownership), an obsession primarily of -Americans.

Quote from: EOTB;1137321Look - they can't take gaming away from you.  The OGL saw to that.  But each of you will have to decide which is more important to you; being a gamer in the mainstream, and comfort, or the alternative.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1137365I mean, if Lovecraft produced such a book (hypothetically) then you could say that it was intentionally racist. Given his background, but you can't apply the same intent of the author(s).

Quote from: oggsmash;1137424But they have been given the watered down version that is all over college campuses and is all over various sociology classes

Quote from: Omega;1137428They cant take gaming away from you... yet. And the OGL saw to nothing. If anything its allowed them a point of entry which they have been using and will continue to use till they control that as well. And failing that control any major platform so you cant do anything with it even if you wanted to.

At the rate they are going we will probably see faked news that Gygax raped ten girls a day at every con he went to. Then a bunch of witnesses and more "victims" come fourth to tell their sad tale of being raped by Gary.

We are fighting tooth and nail because the alternative is a new dark age for gaming that will make the damage the Forge, Swine and Storygamers did look tame by comparison.

Quote from: EOTB;1137436The OGL is irrevocable.

Quote from: Rhiannon;1137423Sometimes the venom of these criticisms forget that these books are written by real people who clearly meant no harm are still with us but there are definitely some on social media for whom the cruelty is part of the point. I would suspect Cook would even agree with some of the criticism if it wasn't framed with such hostility.

Quote from: Brad;1137438That's not how Marxism works...

Quote from: Rhiannon;1137390Where did you get that information? The podcast hosts are Daniel Kwan and Steve Dee, neither of them are involved with Honey and Hot Wax from what I can see in the credits here (https://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/honey-hot-wax-an-anthology-of-erotic-art-games/). Clio Yun-Su Davis appears to be the only person of east asian descent listed, at best perhaps she was a guest on the podcast?

Quote from: EOTB;1137446If we reach a day 0 of that magnitude, gaming under a legal umbrella isn't on the front page of concerns and every second spent here now was worse than wasted.

Not pooh-poohing black swans - nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, etc., but perspective

Quote from: EOTB;1137458My quoted response was limited to a scenario where previous law was declared null and void.  Not today's reality

Quote from: CRKrueger;1137389Looks like a different group of people at asiansread are doing Al Qadim.  Looks like people of middle-eastern descent and a red headed British white chick who says she's an LGBTQ+PoC.
https://twitter.com/EvilCleverDog/status/1275111601776087041 (https://twitter.com/EvilCleverDog/status/1275111601776087041)

Quote from: CRKrueger;1137389Daniel Kwan and bunch have indeed moved on to L5R.
https://twitter.com/aznsrepresent/status/1276607143538556930 (https://twitter.com/aznsrepresent/status/1276607143538556930)

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137425The truth is Asia and Europe are both parts of the same continent, it is a single landmass, the border between, the Ural Mountains is an arbitrary demarcation line. The continents Europe and Asia are really much more defined by what the people look like who live there rather than any geological feature. China is on the same continent as France!

Quote from: EOTB;1137458My quoted response was limited to a scenario where previous law was declared null and void.  Not today's reality

Quote from: GameDaddy;1137461Ok watched about twenty minutes of this, and then queued up my DvD copy of "The Revenant" in order to watch Leonardo DiCaprio get raped by a Bear, and then exact revenge on everyone who left him for the bear, because it was so much more entertaining than listening to these four rambling on... OMG ...soooo boring!!! Seems obvious only two of them have read through L5R, and ...WTF? An Archaeologist reviewing Fantasy RPG games, ...because why again??? I couldn't fathom any reason a fantasy gamer would care whether or not  an archaeologist would approve of how they chose to game... so just simply confused about why she was invited to provide commentary in the first place.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137425The truth is Asia and Europe are both parts of the same continent, it is a single landmass, the border between, the Ural Mountains is an arbitrary demarcation line. The continents Europe and Asia are really much more defined by what the people look like who live there rather than any geological feature. China is on the same continent as France!

Quote from: GameDaddy;1137461While these losers seem happy running around ripping on other peoples games, It would be much better for them, if they just designed and released their own Asian themed game, adding all the improvements they feel are lacking. I'd really like to see them do that. Then I'd like to try their game, then I might have some shred of respect for their evaluation of games from, ...well... almost fifty years ago, back when very few Asians even played RPGs. I'd love to see them pioneer a new form of gaming instead of ripping on the truly innovative pioneers.

Quote from: jhkim;1137472The implication of this is that if I'm an author, the best way to not be problematic is to only write about white people, and not have any Asians or blacks in my writing. That seems backwards to me.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1137478Write something and publish it. Produce.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1137481If only these feckless idiots would get up off their arse and actually do something... I guess it's easier to open your mouth and wait to be spoon fed.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1137478It's not backwards at all. First, they tell you that your writing is Problematic because it includes people from group X, and since you are not from group X, it's wrong for you to write about them. Next, they tell you that your writing is Problematic because it does not include anyone from group X.

Thus, your only recourse is not to write anything at all. And thus you have become like them: someone who produces nothing. That's the end game.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1137478It's like that university offering free online courses that got in trouble because the law required they make all their courses accessible to disabled people - and they didn't have the funds to do so, so pulled the free courses (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/06/u-california-berkeley-delete-publicly-available-educational-content). No access is equal access.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1137478If they think OA is crap they should write their own better version. I am tired of CJWs whinging that they will get "cancelled" when anyone can publish anywhere these days, and I am tired of SJWs whinging that this or that product doesn't include them, or doesn't represent them properly. Write something and publish it. Produce.

Quote from: jhkim;1137472I have some critiques of Oriental Adventures, but I think there should be recognition of the effort and interest that the authors put into including Asian culture.

Quote from: jhkim;1137472I still haven't watched the videos, so no comments directly on them.

But in my experience, the most annoying thing about this type of critique is that it often implies that the most problematic old material are the ones that feature the most non-white characters. Standard AD&D with almost no blacks or Asians is not called out, but Oriental Adventures is considered problematic for its portrayal of Asians. The implication of this is that if I'm an author, the best way to not be problematic is to only write about white people, and not have any Asians or blacks in my writing. That seems backwards to me.

I have some critiques of Oriental Adventures, but I think there should be recognition of the effort and interest that the authors put into including Asian culture.

Quote from: Tyberious Funk;1137486To be fair, why would they?  It's much easier to generate clicks/downloads by saying something controversial and/or critical.  You'll get supporters rushing to have their existing views affirmed, and critics rushing to be outraged.  This thread is a perfect example... I have zero idea who these guys are, but they've now generated 18 pages of (mostly) outrage.  I dare say there is also plenty of activity on reddit, rpg.net and other places.  That's quite a lot of publicity for minimal effort.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1137483If you cannot befriend & coexist, at least metaphorically die in each other's arms.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1137507You are so close to epiphany!

They are fucking racists, fucking segregationists, AND they have said out loud in multiple occasions you should only write about your own race (Pundits Arrows got criticism for not being written by someone from India).

You're either blissfully ignorant or disingenuous, and I don't see how can you not have encountered these arguments from them.

Actors should only play characters of their race, writers should only write about their own race, etc.

Of course this automatically makes you a racist for not including anything but white people. Catch 22.

So which is it jhkim? Blissful ignorance or disingenuous?

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1137476Now I remember where I saw that guy Kwan's name before:  He's part of Dundas Games.
I was interested in grabbing a hardcover of their upcoming PbtA Ross Rifles as I am a WW1 history nut.  Guess they just lost a sale from me.  Too bad as it looked interesting.

Why did he have to be a fellow Canuck with that book banning mentality?  Ah T.O. you never disappoint.

Judging by his portfolio, if i was into conspiracies, would guess his endgame is to get WOTC to dump the book, then elevator pitch them to be the lead on rewriting the setting book for 5e (using those elite 'sensitivity reading' skills) with help from his buddies.  Heh

Quote from: MonsterSlayer;1137471I don't think geologists would agree with this. I think plate tectonics is the defining theory on the distinction. (hence the Himalayas boundary)  But I can sort of see your point except Europe and North Africa are not separated by that many miles of piddly water. And I do not see you claiming they are the same continent. France is a lot closer to Morocco than it is China and it is a lot easier to get to Africa from France than it is to get to China.

;-)
But let's not let that get in the way of a racist argument. *sarcasm*

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1137476Judging by his portfolio, if i was into conspiracies, would guess his endgame is to get WOTC to dump the book, then elevator pitch them to be the lead on rewriting the setting book for 5e (using those elite 'sensitivity reading' skills) with help from his buddies.  Heh

Quote from: Hakdov;1137490man, if they think OA is problematic...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]4631[/ATTACH]

Quote from: Shasarak;1137447Ah, the famous Davis clan.  Well known East Asian lineage.

Quote from: jhkim;1137472I still haven't watched the videos, so no comments directly on them.

But in my experience, the most annoying thing about this type of critique is that it often implies that the most problematic old material are the ones that feature the most non-white characters. Standard AD&D with almost no blacks or Asians is not called out, but Oriental Adventures is considered problematic for its portrayal of Asians. The implication of this is that if I'm an author, the best way to not be problematic is to only write about white people, and not have any Asians or blacks in my writing. That seems backwards to me.

I have some critiques of Oriental Adventures, but I think there should be recognition of the effort and interest that the authors put into including Asian culture.

Quote from: Rhiannon;1137560Regardless, so far I wouldn't say this has much real life momentum, seems restricted to a few Tweets online that got around 500 likes, probably from the same group who keep calling for Mearls' head, who WotC seems to be largely ignoring.

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1137562We laugh now, but wait till the soulless bastards come after Legend of the Five Rings.

Quote from: Dracones;1137578That won't be enough. The authors of that will also have to disavow (https://dungeonsdonuts.tumblr.com/post/622455367339835392/i-am-sorry-for-blood-in-the-chocolate-and-what-it/amp) their award winning work on that book.

We've moved on from book burning into full on McCarthy era public disavowments.

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1137586I give him only a 50% chance of escaping the mob anyways.

There is no reconciliation within identity politics. There is only sin and castigation. They make the Inquisition of Warhammer 40,000 look like a pack of little old Baptist church ladies in terms of their viciousness.

QuoteTo the Japanese players--Masataka Ohta, Akira Saito, Hiroyasu Kurose, Takafumi Sakurai, and Yuka Tate-ishi--for critiquing and improving the manuscript on short notice.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1137610The Streisand effect never fails to amuse.

The irony here is that Oriental Adventures (1e) did have sensitivity readers when it was written. Here's from the special thanks on page 2:



Is the book perfect? Well, no. It would probably send medieval studies students into apoplexy. So would the pseudo-European stuff, too.

But that's hardly a reason to demand that it be banned from circulation. Banning books is a slippery slope. What's next, To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Fin (https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/1298539/To-Kill-A-Mockingbird-Harper-Lee-Huckleberry-Finn-Mark-Twain-banned-books)?

To be honest, I'm pretty sure that asking Japanese gamers to write a roleplaying game about fantasy not!Japan would still piss off the mob because now anime tiddies of all things are considered the Great Satan. Which contradicts the message of #freethenipple, btw.

D&D is a game where you can have planets of black vikings. Let that sink in. Rather than demanding we ban books made for weaboos 35 years ago, I think it would be far more productive if we actually created the stuff we want to see. For example, I am world building a Stargate SG-1-inspired setting where fantasy counterpart cultures have their own planets, including cultures that never existed on Earth like black vikings and Inuit Starks.

Quote from: Rhiannon;1137560Good point. I also wish they didn't do this as essentially a Live Play of one of those 'Let's Read' thread from TBP.

One it is rambling and boring, two it encourages kneejerk responses instead of thoughful critique, particularly when it starts to feel like they're trying to top each other in terms of negativity, like a real-time dogpile.

Why not produce a 45 minute video review like Seth Skorkowsky? I guess they figure it takes less effort to just sound off with their friends online for 36 hours.

Regardless, so far I wouldn't say this has much real life momentum, seems restricted to a few Tweets online that got around 500 likes, probably from the same group who keep calling for Mearls' head, who WotC seems to be largely ignoring.

At the same time as we saw with the White Wolf nonsense it doesn't take much to spook a corporation into action if they think it will hurt their bottom line.

Quote from: Rhiannon;1137554You're a strange guy.

Quote from: tenbones;1137659Well the pragmatic, if dire and cynical view is this: who cares? At this point if WotC memory-holes everything pre-5e, there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. And likely this is the direction they're going to go in varying degrees, going forward.

As I've said personally, D&D left me. Let me amend that to "us" (that care).

I'll be happy in the graveyard with my dead-trees. The horses and genies have all left the lamp-shaped barn inside the giant open tube of tooth-paste called D&D, that has been squashed flat by WotC's culturally Marxist bootheel. And hey! people love it. So good on them?

I mean how many times do we have to be slapped to understand they're telling us "WE" are not their targeted audience. The message is clear, so why support those that hate us? /shrug

Quote from: ZetaRidley;1137624That #freethenipple comment made me laugh. Its actually rather ironic, and hypocritical. It's okay for the people they like to have and express sexual interests and feelings (basically the alphabet gang). God help you if you are someone they don't like and you do the same. I think thats why anime tiddies have become controversial, since thats mostly a thing white losers are into in the west. Anything you like, desire, find attractive, etc. is wrong. Anything that makes me feel uncomfortable is wrong. I think thats why many games, one that comes to mind is Pathfinder 2e, has the most unattractive, boring women and men in their artwork now. Its just boring, stilted, androgynous people. Which is funny, because I think real women want to feel sexy too. But I also think these screeching harpies get offended at sexually idealized men and women because it hurts their feelings and doesn't fit their view of gender. And god damn did RPGs have sexually idealized men and women in it until recently.

The thing about this is, its not good enough to just make something, I think. They want to control the narrative and by proxy their environment to an extreme extent. It's really just a moral panic, but instead of Satan, it's Nazi's, fascism, and anything that threatens their idealized multicultural society ideals. Kinda like how Satan and liberals were out to destroy the idealized christian society of the right back in the 80s, I think. Either way, because of this, because of the pressures of their in group peers and the demands of their extreme world view, they can't just live and let live. And that is scary.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1137680While I do think anime (certain genres anyway, it's hardly monolithic) has a problem with objectifying women, censorship is not the way to deal with it.

Quote from: tenbones;1137659Well the pragmatic, if dire and cynical view is this: who cares? At this point if WotC memory-holes everything pre-5e, there is nothing anyone can do to stop them. And likely this is the direction they're going to go in varying degrees, going forward.

As I've said personally, D&D left me. Let me amend that to "us" (that care).

I'll be happy in the graveyard with my dead-trees. The horses and genies have all left the lamp-shaped barn inside the giant open tube of tooth-paste called D&D, that has been squashed flat by WotC's culturally Marxist bootheel. And hey! people love it. So good on them?

I mean how many times do we have to be slapped to understand they're telling us "WE" are not their targeted audience. The message is clear, so why support those that hate us? /shrug

Quote from: Mercurius;1137707Who is this "we" you're talking about? Are you talking about from-my-cold-dead-hands conservatives who want to MAGA-back to the 1950s? Or are you talking about the folks across the political spectrum who are concerned with censorship? If the former, yeah, I think "you" are not their target audience, because you represent a relatively small minority of D&D players. If the latter, WotC better keep "us" in mind, because we are a significant poriton of their book-buying audience.

My guess is that the vast majority of D&D players don't care; they just want to roll dice and kill things (yes, orcs).

Then there are the "traditionalists" who don't want things to change. The flexible ones are OK with new stuff (e.g. non-evil orcs), as long as the traditional variants are kept alive and supported.

Then there are the ''change-everything-ists" who want everything re-written to conform to "woke" ideology. The flexible ones are OK with the traditional stuff remaining in the books, as long as they are re-contextualized within more diverse presentations.

There are extremists on either side: traditionalists who will vituperate if D&D isn't exactly the way its always been (even though its always been changing); and the wokists who will never stop looking for signs of racism and gatekeeping, and once they're done with orcs and drow, will move on to hobgoblins and duergar. Neither group will end up being happy with whatever WotC does, because WotC will almost certainly cater to the majority of folks who can meet somewhere in the middle.

Quote from: Mercurius;1137707Who is this "we" you're talking about? Are you talking about from-my-cold-dead-hands conservatives who want to MAGA-back to the 1950s? Or are you talking about the folks across the political spectrum who are concerned with censorship? If the former, yeah, I think "you" are not their target audience, because you represent a relatively small minority of D&D players. If the latter, WotC better keep "us" in mind, because we are a significant poriton of their book-buying audience.

My guess is that the vast majority of D&D players don't care; they just want to roll dice and kill things (yes, orcs).

Then there are the "traditionalists" who don't want things to change. The flexible ones are OK with new stuff (e.g. non-evil orcs), as long as the traditional variants are kept alive and supported.

Then there are the ''change-everything-ists" who want everything re-written to conform to "woke" ideology. The flexible ones are OK with the traditional stuff remaining in the books, as long as they are re-contextualized within more diverse presentations.

There are extremists on either side: traditionalists who will vituperate if D&D isn't exactly the way its always been (even though its always been changing); and the wokists who will never stop looking for signs of racism and gatekeeping, and once they're done with orcs and drow, will move on to hobgoblins and duergar. Neither group will end up being happy with whatever WotC does, because WotC will almost certainly cater to the majority of folks who can meet somewhere in the middle.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137724The 1950s weren't perfect, but they weren't the biggest "disaster" to befall the USA either. The Lauren Chen show on youtube recently did a show on the left calling traditional fantasy racist, and she even mentioned Dungeons & Dragons. To make the game interesting and not boring, you need some villains. Most DMs simply want to throw some orcs at player character to give them something to do. The left wants to give the orcs some justification for their bad behavior, mainly that they had terrible childhoods, society didn't like them, and they faced prejudice and discrimination wherever they went and that is why they turned to evil. Poor orcs! Ever consider that it is the orcs' reputation for evil that is responsible for society's hostile reaction to them? "Could not be," says the left, "they are discriminated against because they are ugly, and their evil acts are just them acting out against this, so when they loot, rape, and rob, you just have to understand where they are coming from." Or I would say, they are just evil, their purpose in the game is to provide some fodder for D&D adventures. Orcs aren't real people, they don't exist, real people don't get killed when you roll some dice and reduce an orcs hit points to less than zero!

Quote from: Shasarak;1137662Pointing out an Asian person called "Davis" is strange?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1137746The stereotype of goblins (and dwarves et al) bears superficial similarity to racist stereotypes of Jews. In Cornish folklore, even, some mine-dwelling friendly goblins are literally the ghosts of Jews. I'm pretty sure this has been discussed at length for years now.

So that got me thinking... how would Jews and goblins, dwarves, et al interact if they met?

From there, I got a goblin hero who is Jewish because his human mother was a Jew. He fights antisemitic teutonic werewolves.



The behavior of orcs bears more resemblance to historical raiders and tribal warfare than to poor people in cities.  Orcs don't draw on any stereotypes of African Americans. They draw on stereotypes of vikings and indigenous peoples.  Those are completely different things. If we're going to argue whether a depiction draws on stereotypes, then we need to at least get our references correct.

Also, "what do we do with the baby orcs?" long predates the woke mob. Tolkien did it first! D&D fans are not mindless consumers. We do analyze D&D's idiosyncrasies. Unfortunately, the woke mob has made it impossible to do so without devolving into flame wars.

Quote from: Rhiannon;1137751As has been pointed out in a few threads already, not-evil Orcs, Goblins, Ogres and Drow have existed in D&D going back at least to 2e if not even earlier. So the claims of both the pseduo-tradionalists and the identity-political critics are, as usual, ignorant of history. Usually because both are not particularly interested in either reading or reflection.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137750True. Most poor people aren't criminals and most criminals are motivated more by greed than desperation. A rapist doesn't rape because he is poor and hungry. Orcs lack empathy for other intelligent beings, they want to advance themselves, and they don't mind hurting others to get what they want.

Quote from: Rhiannon;1137751As has been pointed out in a few threads already, not-evil Orcs, Goblins, Ogres and Drow have existed in D&D going back at least to 2e if not even earlier. So the claims of both the pseduo-tradionalists and the identity-political critics are, as usual, ignorant of history. Usually because both are not particularly interested in either reading or reflection.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137764I don't see orcs as evil so much as no empathic, they are concerned about themselves, and how to advance themselves, each orc doesn't care about other orcs, they don't care about other individuals, they only care about themselves and getting what they want, othere individuals are either viewed as obstacles or as a means to getting what they want.

For each orc the universe revolves around themselves, other intelligent beings have no value to the other that as a means to getting what they want or as something to be eliminated when they get in the way of what that particular orc wants. Orcs don't do give and take, they aren't considerate of others if they don't have to be. It could be that they are simply born without empathetic feelings for others, there is just them and the rest of the universe and that is how they view society. If orcs cooperate it is based on fear, an orc leader has to be intimidating to all of his orc followers otherwise they will not follow and will fight to be leader. Orcs understand the value of cooperation, but only because it benefits them individually. To get ahead, they must cooperate with the orc tribe, and they don't challenge them leader because he is too dangerous to challenge until he is not! This is the psychology that motivates most orcs, and this psychology often results in evil actions, but they don't just do something in order to be evil.

Quote from: Valatar;1137823I'd pin the Orcs more in line with Mongol raiders than the Euros.  The Euros at least made up justifications for the things they did, how they were advancing culture to the barbarians or saving souls and whatnot.  Orcs don't bother with that step.  Not that the end result was terribly different for the various places that got pillaged, but it's still significant for the purpose of characterization.

Quote from: FelixGamingX1;1137852The hobby is the verge of yet another collapse. Start making your bets.

Quote from: Mercurius;1137868It is? D&D is more popular than ever. Yeah, there's "Orcgate," but it probably is only occuring among a small segment of gamers.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1137837The more people try to hang real world and historical aspects onto fictional creations, the less likely we'll have any allowable fictions in this bleak future of stupidity.  The answer to these questions about "are goblins and dwarves Jewish?" or "are orcs black people" isn't to search and dig for bits to pseudo-intellectually muse over. The answer is FUCK OFF ASSHOLE.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1137746The behavior of orcs bears more resemblance to historical raiders and tribal warfare than to poor people in cities.  Orcs don't draw on any stereotypes of African Americans. They draw on stereotypes of vikings and indigenous peoples.  Those are completely different things. If we're going to argue whether a depiction draws on stereotypes, then we need to at least get our references correct.

Quote from: Rhiannon;1137751As has been pointed out in a few threads already, not-evil Orcs, Goblins, Ogres and Drow have existed in D&D going back at least to 2e if not even earlier. So the claims of both the pseduo-tradionalists and the identity-political critics are, as usual, ignorant of history. Usually because both are not particularly interested in either reading or reflection.

Quote from: FelixGamingX1;1137852The hobby is the verge of yet another collapse. Start making your bets.

Quote from: Omega;1137924Actually Orcs act more like european imperialists/colonists. They sweep into a region, lay ruin to the existing civilizations and enslave or kill the populace. The only thing slowing them down is that they war incessantly with eachother. In Greyhawk they literally have a mandate from god to lay waste to civilization and destroy or enslave all non-orcs.

Quote from: Omega;1137926Non evil orcs go back to OD&D. They could be neutral or chaotic.

Quote from: Omega;1137924Actually Orcs act more like european imperialists/colonists. They sweep into a region, lay ruin to the existing civilizations and enslave or kill the populace. The only thing slowing them down is that they war incessantly with eachother. In Greyhawk they literally have a mandate from god to lay waste to civilization and destroy or enslave all non-orcs.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137941So they are just ugly humanoids now, what do we need them for?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1137943I don't understand why there is so much resistance to the depiction of more nuanced, non-inherently-evil orcs (or other humanoid races). It's been a thing for a few decades now.

Quote from: Omega;1137977You miss the point. Massively.

Quote from: Omega;1137978Its been a thing since apparently the get-go as various players from the start have recounted doing this or that with orcs and about anything else.

Quote from: Opaopajr;1137971Dunno where boxcrayon is going, but then whatever gets you through the night. Just FYI everyone, there has already been a canon half-orc paladin in 2e ("Lands of Intrigue" iirc?) which meant it had to be Lawful Good.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137981What's next, how about good vampires?

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137980You could substitute humans for orcs easily enough. Orcs are obvious adversaries, humans are not. If orcs aren't going to be evil, what good are they for, if they are not something PCs can kill to gain experience points and to take their treasure? If you substitute humans for orcs, what do you need orcs for? Humans can be bad, they can do the same stuff that orcs do. If you change orcs so they are just an ugly race players can play, what use are they to the DM? I guess they can give you bonuses on strength, I suppose the half-orc is of less use if you could play a full orc. What do you think?

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137981What's next, how about good vampires?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1137943Not just European colonists. Any colonists in human history. Raiders, tribal warfare, ethnically-charged violence in general... Orcs are the Other personified. They simultaneously represent how victims of colonialism perceive their oppressors and how colonizers perceive their victims. Even the artistic trend to morally humanize orcs could trace its roots to the general decline of racism, the rise of multiculturalism, and the repudiation of colonialist pasts.

Simply put, orcs are human. We created them and thus they reflect our thoughts and feelings.

I don't understand why there is so much resistance to the depiction of more nuanced, non-inherently-evil orcs (or other humanoid races). It's been a thing for a few decades now.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137980You could substitute humans for orcs easily enough. Orcs are obvious adversaries, humans are not. If orcs aren't going to be evil, what good are they for, if they are not something PCs can kill to gain experience points and to take their treasure? If you substitute humans for orcs, what do you need orcs for? Humans can be bad, they can do the same stuff that orcs do. If you change orcs so they are just an ugly race players can play, what use are they to the DM? I guess they can give you bonuses on strength, I suppose the half-orc is of less use if you could play a full orc. What do you think?

Quote from: VisionStorm;1137989The issue isn't that traditionally evil races can't potentially be good. The real issue is that people want to make believe that making traditionally "evil" races evil is racist, and expect everyone else (specially official published worlds) to treat this aa a standard. Rather than making their own world or using one of numerous settings where orcs already are not evil by default, which have existed for decades.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137981What's next, how about good vampires?

Quote from: Shasarak;1138012The problem I see in having a "Good" Vampire is that you have to solve the problem of what they are going to be feeding on.  If they feed on Humans then how "good" are they going to be really.

Its kind of like having a good Cannibal - he only eats bad people.

Quote from: Shasarak;1138012The problem I see in having a "Good" Vampire is that you have to solve the problem of what they are going to be feeding on.  If they feed on Humans then how "good" are they going to be really.

Its kind of like having a good Cannibal - he only eats bad people.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1138010It's the satanic panic all over again, with the bad thing this time being "racism".

Quote from: Shasarak;1138012The problem I see in having a "Good" Vampire is that you have to solve the problem of what they are going to be feeding on.  If they feed on Humans then how "good" are they going to be really.

Its kind of like having a good Cannibal - he only eats bad people.

Quote from: tenbones;1137995Because by making them "human" it is the stepping stone for cultural Marxists to further undermine the entirety of the game in order to control how we engage with it publicly. It becomes the mast of their shitty sail on what is/is not allowed under the auspices of deconstructing *everything* in real life by using your engagement with the game as an example of how to ostracize undesirables of Wrongthink from their newly conquered territory of TTRPG's.

Why do you think so many of us have been permabanned from TBP? LITERALLY the first day I arrived here was due to being banned for arguing charges that Paizo as a company was racist for their presentation of Orcs (because years ago when this started, they were chanting "Orcs are Blacks".) And now Paizo apparently agrees they were indeed racist, and this perverted view of reality has permeated far beyond TTRPG's.

So make-believe isn't real. What happens at a gaming table is not a reflection of people playing (necessarily). And if people want fake moralizing in their products - have at it. WotC has made it clear WE are not who they want playing their game, and they don't want my money. No problem.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138062How about we come to a compromise?

The book "Children of the Planes" includes a race of aasimar/orcs called "leonorks." If players and GMs want orcs who are good, then they can use leonorks. This would leave the evil greenskins untouched.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1138022D&D player characters kill a lot of bad creatures anyway, so a vampire could be part of a player character party, he would go with them through dungeons sucking the blood or draining the energy from various evil aligned creatures than player characters encounter.

Quote from: Omega;1138028You just solved your own problem of what the good vampire is feeding on...

The villains.

Quote from: tenbones;1138075This misses the point. Orcs exist for the purposes of narrative conflict. Just like playing chess requires someone to play the dark side, and the other play the light side. The ideology is infringing on the purpose of the game. Just like the idiots in entertainment and the arts are allowing the ideology to come before their respective arts. It is propaganda at the expense of the point. It's a means to demonize and take control over the hobby for the purposes of bolstering the political narrative.

Leonorks existing does *nothing* to resolve their idiotic assertion that Orcs are analogous to American Black people. Which is pretty racist in its own right. But that's not the larger point - the idea is to get people to bend by flooding the zone. Nevermind any hypocrisies dredged up along the way.

And thus here we are.

Because once they scour Orcs from the game... it'll be whatever that stands in for them that will be the next thing. Then we'll have "Leon" versions of those. etc. etc. with the real agenda of proving your apostasy to their faith... or outright heresy.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1138091It also misses the point that you don't need to invent a separate breed of good-aligned planar orcs just to have good (or non-evil) orcs in your campaign. You can already include a tribe of non-evil actual green skinned orcs in your campaign if that is what you want. Non-evil orcs fully integrated into mainstream society already even exist in some published settings, including Al-Qadim and Eberron. These things already exist. It's a moot point. This is literally a non-issue outside of trying to force non-evil orcs as the universal default rather than just having non-evil orc tribes in your campaign or playing Al-Qadim.

Quote from: tenbones;1138075This misses the point. Orcs exist for the purposes of narrative conflict. Just like playing chess requires someone to play the dark side, and the other play the light side. The ideology is infringing on the purpose of the game.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1137943I don't understand why there is so much resistance to the depiction of more nuanced, non-inherently-evil orcs (or other humanoid races). It's been a thing for a few decades now.

Quote from: tenbones;1138177That's because the motives of the outraged has nothing really to do with the game - it has to do with crafting a mechanism to go after people with Wrongthink.

It's the "Retard" problem. You can shift the name - Imbecile, Moron, Idiot, etc etc. each one eventually outraging people... until the term du-jour becomes taboo... they'll come up with Cognitively Challenged or Learning Disabled or whatever... it still means the same thing. All of which is besides the point, which is to control the language and means by which you engage with such ideas on their terms.

Orcs = Blacks to THEM. So now Orcs are taboo... enter the Orcs/Blacks that have been saved by SJWs - AngelOrks! Then ? Enter the New Orc Stand-in... which soon they will make analogous to being Black people in their own minds... and rinse/repeat. Each rinsing being a purge of players for Wrongthinking, further eroding the fanbase. And so it goes.

Quote from: Altheus;1138215Funny, the whole orcs = black people thing has inspired me. Next time I use orcs I'm going to give them a Shaka equivalent who brings discipline and organisation to them.

Not a rabble of chaotic orcs but organised units who use tactics and discipline to fight, coupled with the orcs natural ferocity, a terrifying foe.

Quote from: Premier;1138302The funny thing is that you will have come full circle. The ORIGINAL orcs in Lord of the Rings, at least the ones in Sauron's military, were organised enough to have individual service numbers just like modern-day soldiers, and individuals from different units would be assigned together for specific missions. It's all there in the dialogue.

Quote from: RandyB;1138307Orcs in AD&D 1e were Lawful Evil, which would fit that model perfectly. I think the switch to Chaotic Evil was a 3e thing.

Quote from: Scrivener of Doom;1138328Holmes did it first.

Quote from: David Johansen;1138338Huh, so Tolkien's elves are just elves on a high protein diet, anabolic steroids, and an intensive training regime?

Quote from: tenbones;1138075This misses the point. Orcs exist for the purposes of narrative conflict. Just like playing chess requires someone to play the dark side, and the other play the light side. The ideology is infringing on the purpose of the game. Just like the idiots in entertainment and the arts are allowing the ideology to come before their respective arts. It is propaganda at the expense of the point. It's a means to demonize and take control over the hobby for the purposes of bolstering the political narrative.

Leonorks existing does *nothing* to resolve their idiotic assertion that Orcs are analogous to American Black people. Which is pretty racist in its own right. But that's not the larger point - the idea is to get people to bend by flooding the zone. Nevermind any hypocrisies dredged up along the way.

And thus here we are.

Because once they scour Orcs from the game... it'll be whatever that stands in for them that will be the next thing. Then we'll have "Leon" versions of those. etc. etc. with the real agenda of proving your apostasy to their faith... or outright heresy.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1138345Let's not let being politically correct get in the way of our games of shame, torches and pitchforks now!

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1138352Barbaric Evil orcs can be fun, cultured non-evil or morally gray orcs can be fun. I think the issue for me is when people say one of these two approaches are not to be allowed, that there is a problem. In terms of what works for most D&D settings, I think evil orcs are a reliable stand by for a reason, so it makes sense for that to be the default (but individual worlds going in different directions, or GMs going in different directions in their own campaigns are always interesting to me). I made orcs like Romans in my setting, because I liked having them more civilized, but it still kept them warlike. I also had orcs elsewhere in the setting that fit different types. For example the hill orcs and mountain orcs (which were a perpetual threat to the settled places) were basically like D&D orcs. And I had a kind of Fire and Ice tribe of orcs led by an evil necromancer in the far north that worked well.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138341I have no idea where anybody got the idea that orcs are in any way drawing upon racial stereotypes of African Americans.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1138375Because the people making complaints about orcs and racism in D&D are making shit up without putting much thought into their positions.

Quote from: Myrdin Potter;1138381Now on every older D&D book on DMs Guild.

"We recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website, does not reflect the values of the Dungeon & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end."

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138379Who is comparing orcs with African Americans? I scrolled through the twitter cesspool and I have not found anybody arguing this.

Quote from: Omega;1138387Theres been a few now, theres an older thread here about some nutcase pretending to be a professor or somesuch making that claim. Its been tossed around at least once a year for the last 5 or so. Least thats when I started really noticing it popping up amidst all the avvusiations of D&D is "sexist!"

Quote from: BoxCrayonTalesWho is comparing orcs with African Americans? I scrolled through the twitter cesspool and I have not found anybody arguing this.

Quote from: Omega;1138387Theres been a few now, theres an older thread here about some nutcase pretending to be a professor or somesuch making that claim. Its been tossed around at least once a year for the last 5 or so. Least thats when I started really noticing it popping up amidst all the avvusiations of D&D is "sexist!"

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138394Orcs are clearly drawing from depictions of vikings, mongols, and indigenous peoples. D&D is, after all, a product of American authors. America has a history of Manifest Destiny. This influence is very obvious, especially in older editions with a greater focus on exploring mysterious frontiers.

The language used in Volo's Guide is identical to the rhetoric used to dehumanize the indigenous peoples victimized by colonialism (including native Americans, Australian aboriginals, and slavic peoples). Read it out loud. If that language was applied to any human group, then it would be obviously dehumanizing and racist.

I don't understand why these simple observations would be the least bit controversial. These are hardly new. I see essays on this topic dating back a couple decades at least.

Quote from: Shasarak;1138417My observations is, if you think that Orcs are Humans wearing rubber Orc masks then you would be right to think that they are being dehumanised.

Quote from: Myrdin Potter;1138381Now on every older D&D book on DMs Guild.

"We recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website, does not reflect the values of the Dungeon & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end."

Quote from: Brad;1138453Postmodern Marxism at its finest, folks. "Everything before NOW was terrible, everything we say is right."

How long before this board is shutdown for wrongthink?

Quote from: Brad;1138453Postmodern Marxism at its finest, folks. "Everything before NOW was terrible, everything we say is right."

How long before this board is shutdown for wrongthink?

Quote from: Myrdin Potter;1138381Now on every older D&D book on DMs Guild.

"We recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website, does not reflect the values of the Dungeon & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end."

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1138383And 'older' appears to mean 'pre-5E'--even the 4E stuff gets hit with this.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138479Do you miss where they say: "This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed."

Clearly there are still some sane people making decisions. Anyone who says erasing history is erasing history deserves a gold star, just like in elementary/primary school.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1138495How can you read that sentence and come to that conclusion? They aren't keeping these book unedited because they think erasing history is wrong. They are keeping them unedited to preserve the evidence that old D&D is bad and anyone who worked on or likes old D&D is, therefore, also bad.

Quote from: Brad;1138496Yeah, that's exactly what it is. It takes a while for people to start to be brainwashed into hating the past so much they want to remove it completely. Took the past 10 years to do that to George Washington, might take a couple before people are clamoring to remove Gygax's name from any reference to D&D.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1138497Possible, although I think it's more likely that they're just trying to have their cake (keep selling the old stuff) and eat it too (appease the Mob). Your explanation would fit why they did a blanket application to all the pre-5E material, although going for the quick and easy solution seems more probable.

Quote from: Brad;1138501SJWs have zero issue with profiting off "problematic" things. Someone else can't, however. Cf. Lovecraft/Chaosium.

Quote from: Myrdin Potter;1138381Now on every older D&D book on DMs Guild.

"We recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website, does not reflect the values of the Dungeon & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end."

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138394The language used in Volo's Guide is identical to the rhetoric used to dehumanize the indigenous peoples victimized by colonialism (including native Americans, Australian aboriginals, and slavic peoples). Read it out loud. If that language was applied to any human group, then it would be obviously dehumanizing and racist.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138379Who is comparing orcs with African Americans? I scrolled through the twitter cesspool and I have not found anybody arguing this.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138451Why is it okay to use racist rhetoric un-ironically against fictional characters?

I get needing targets to farm for XP and loot, but D&D tacks on a ton of unnecessary baggage.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138451Why is it okay to use racist rhetoric un-ironically against fictional characters?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138451Why is it okay to use racist rhetoric un-ironically against fictional characters?

I get needing targets to farm for XP and loot, but D&D tacks on a ton of unnecessary baggage.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138394The language used in Volo's Guide is identical to the rhetoric used to dehumanize the indigenous peoples victimized by colonialism (including native Americans, Australian aboriginals, and slavic peoples). Read it out loud. If that language was applied to any human group, then it would be obviously dehumanizing and racist.

Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1138571Well they are now adding disclaimer to the older books to apologize for...who the hell knows these days.

https://twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/1280973004604755968

QuoteA disclaimer has been added to several legacy titles on our partner distribution sites. We'd like to talk about why we've added that disclaimer, what it means, and other steps that are being taken to address a legacy of ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice in some old products.

This is an early step and not done in a vacuum. It's not enough to evaluate ourselves. As outlined in our original diversity statement (http://spr.ly/6184GTbpj), we're undergoing the process of reviewing our content and practices and hiring external consultants to review with us.

These processes take time to implement, and we'll continue to provide future updates. Unfortunately, our disclaimer was added before we were ready to fully communicate the steps we are taking. We apologize for failing to handle this situation with the care and grace it deserves.

Lastly, we want to make it clear that we condemn the harassment or bullying of those raising their concerns about our content, past or present. D&D wants to be an open, welcoming, and inclusive space. Those who do not reflect those values are not welcome in our community.

Simply put, we messed up and we're sorry. Wizards of the Coast is constantly working to be better, and we have a lot of work to do, especially so in repairing trust with our community. Thank you for continuing to use your voice so that we may continue to make meaningful change.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1138582Sounds like the disclaimer was just the first step:



I'll be surprised if pre-5E products are still available come Michaelmas.

Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1138571Well they are now adding disclaimer to the older books to apologize for...who the hell knows these days.

https://twitter.com/Wizards_DnD/status/1280973004604755968

Quote from: TJS;1138578It's the right move.  It's like making all your food products kosher.  Less than 1% of people observe kosher but most people have no issue eating food that is certified kosher.
 (https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15)

Quote from: TJS;1138578It's the right move.

Quote from: SHARK;1138585Greetings!

Geesus, the syrup slathered on is so thick! "Repairing trust with our community."? What the hell are they talking about?

They are so open and tolerant. Are they as fierce in defending those people that "raise their concerns about our content, past or present" if such people disagree with the mob? Or is disagreeing with the mob being guilty of "Harassment and bullying"?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: VisionStorm;1138588Half these comments gave me ulcers.



This is a particularly apt analogy, given that kosher meat involves animal cruelty, so those consuming it unwittingly make themselves complicit in animal cruelty or accept it cuz "religion". While the claims that old D&D products are somehow racist or prejudiced involves making false or misleading statements that unjustly paint the people who wrote or enjoyed them as bigots, but people unwittingly accept it cuz "opposing (imaginary) 'racism' is a good thing", and also cuz "religion".  So both are abusive practices that people accept because they're idiots who let religious people get away with anything.

QuoteWe at Wizards of the Coast recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website, does not reflect the values of the Dungeon & Dragons franchise today.

QuoteSome older content may reflect ethnic, racial and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time.

QuoteThese depictions were wrong then and are wrong today.

QuoteThis content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.

QuoteDungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end

Quote from: Omega;1138607How long before they start editing the books to "fix" them?

QuoteThis is an early step and not done in a vacuum. It's not enough to evaluate ourselves. As outlined in our original diversity statement (http://spr.ly/6184GTbpj), we're undergoing the process of reviewing our content and practices and hiring external consultants to review with us.

These processes take time to implement, and we'll continue to provide future updates.

QuoteWhen every D&D book is reprinted, we have an opportunity to correct errors that we or the broader D&D community discovered in that book. Each year, we use those opportunities to fix a variety of things, including errors in judgment. In recent reprintings of Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd, for example, we changed text that was racially insensitive. Those reprints have already been printed and will be available in the months ahead. We will continue this process, reviewing each book as it comes up for a reprint and fixing such errors where they are present.

Quote from: Omega;1138607How long before they start editing the books to "fix" them?

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1138612...the writers were actually pretty open-minded and mindful.  Y'know, things like welcoming people at the game table, regardless of gender or race,  not dictating to their players the one 'true' way and the authors of these books encouraging players to do whatever they wanted with the material to make the gaming experience an enjoyable one for them.

Quote from: TJS;1138616I can't imagine they'll edit old books.

Quote from: Omega;1138607How long before they start editing the books to "fix" them?

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1138643I was just going to write: "That would mean actual work, so no", but you have put it better.

Even if they were to put in that work, it would be absurdly pointless. There is a term for taking an old RPG product, looking at what didn't work in it and improving it: It's called writing a new edition. Retroactively re-writing the earlier edition and then excising the original non-rewritten version: That's insane.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1138643I was just going to write: "That would mean actual work, so no", but you have put it better.

Even if they were to put in that work, it would be absurdly pointless. There is a term for taking an old RPG product, looking at what didn't work in it and improving it: It's called writing a new edition. Retroactively re-writing the earlier edition and then excising the original non-rewritten version: That's insane.

Quote from: yabaziou;1137026Those podcast members are US citizens larping being Asians, since despite their genetic heritage coming from East Asia, they are first and foremost entitled western (like many western regardless of their skin color). I am pretty sure that actual chineses, koreans, vietnames have far more presting concerns that the collections of cliches in Oriental Adventures (orient is the Latin to say east and Asia is the Greek's way). Lest not forget that AD&D setting is full of cliches about medieval Europe which also to be wrong like those in OA. They are making a power move to gain (undue) influence over D&D and WotC. And of course, they are not D&D fans, ignoring that exceptional strength was already in the PHB 1e, Comeliness was from UA and Kim Mohan is not an Asian (I shit you not, go on YouTube to check their take on OA, where they are super boring and make those stupid mistakes that are called out in the comments. It is so bad that an US citizen with Japanese calls them out in a comment calling them racists, whom they probably are). And of course the elephant in the china store is the fact their forebears flew their countries to find peace and prosperity in the USA ...

Quote from: Omega;1138607How long before they start editing the books to "fix" them?

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1138682Not gonna happen.  The next step is total removal.

I would imagine that, later, cons that either wholly or partially benefit from WotC's largess (Origins, Gen Con) will see AD&D on through third-and-a-half edition get put on a "You can't run those games here, this is a safe space" list.

Then smaller shops will enforce the same.

By 2028-2030 AD&D will be in the homes of the people who've enjoyed it, and that's it.

If they can lean on eBay hard enough they can get them to remove 1e/2e etc. sales since the books contain "hate speech".  eBay will pull auctions for the weirdest reasons, so it'd probably work.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;1138495How can you read that sentence and come to that conclusion? They aren't keeping these book unedited because they think erasing history is wrong. They are keeping them unedited to preserve the evidence that old D&D is bad and anyone who worked on or likes old D&D is, therefore, also bad.

Quote from: Omega;1138514Half the time Volo comes across as a liar and a jackass so that might have actually been intentional. Showing what a ass he is.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1138517You didn't search anything, since it took me seconds to find ONE asshole arguing exactly that, since your "argument" is destroyed by a single example to the contrary...

https://twitter.com/wfyoungblood/status/1279781258407686145 (https://twitter.com/wfyoungblood/status/1279781258407686145)

https://twitter.com/wfyoungblood/status/1279812730199908352 (https://twitter.com/wfyoungblood/status/1279812730199908352)

Archived just in case:

http://archive.is/rg4oI (http://archive.is/rg4oI)

http://archive.is/i4f6N (http://archive.is/i4f6N)

Quote from: tenbones;1138518Care to tell us what racist language is being used against these fictional characters and who it's really aimed at if not the fictional characters? Because fictional characters aren't real. And to what degree is anyone supposed to be invested in the internal thoughts of strangers that *might* infer incorrectly, yet presume they are in fact the target of the assumed fictional "hate speech"... seems... a bit much to ask for.

I have yet to see anyone ask me what I feel. I'm starting to think no one cares. LOL is that what you're intimating has to happen? We have to tantrum and riot to get people to pay attention to our feelings? Because that's where this is going (with much darker implications already unfolding).

Quote from: Shasarak;1138531Is it because fictional characters are not real?

There is no Orc baby asking their Mum why everyone hates them.

Quote from: SHARK;1138536Greetings!

What is wrong with engaging in whatever rhetoric concerning FICTIONAL CHARACTERS? Fictional races and characters exist for the purposes of drama, of story, of game play. They are there to be killed, enslaved, conquered, or loved, embraced and befriended. It all varies. They are fictional characters and races. Why are people whining about fictional characters?

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1138546Do you even know who Volothamp Geddarm is?

Jesus. Every one of his fucking guides comes with a huge disclaimer from no less than fucking Elminster of Shadowdale because Volo is such an unreliable source (except when it comes to Cormyr, because even the blind squirrel finds the nut now and then). Hell, Elminster once threatened to polymorph him into a toad and leave him that way for about a century.

But no, go cry some more about fictional characters acting badly.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138695I am interested in this book where a hero commits genocide against Muslims.....he kills them all?  Wipes them off the face of the earth?  That seems beyond extreme, Or are we calling a war genocide?  I guess technically they can be one and the same, but it seems like that dude's books are about an all out war are they not?

Quote from: oggsmash;1138695I am interested in this book where a hero commits genocide against Muslims.....he kills them all?  Wipes them off the face of the earth?  That seems beyond extreme, Or are we calling a war genocide?  I guess technically they can be one and the same, but it seems like that dude's books are about an all out war are they not?

Quote from: Omega;1138699You luckily missed the freak show over on BGG where they got a guys game cancelled from production because it was about exploring and colonizing Africa. Because that "promotes genocide". I wish I were joking.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138690Are you sure that's the line of logic you want to use? That logic would say there's nothing wrong with Tom Kratman's novels where his hero commits genocide against muslims.

Quote from: Shasarak;1138711Is there no difference between Orcs and Muslims in your mind?

Are Muslims a purely fictional race?

If we use my logic then there is a difference between using a purely fictional Orc and using an extremely real Muslim.

Do you have any other examples?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138690Throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I acknowledge that monster entries sometimes parrot colonialist claptrap transposed to a fantasy context, but to say "old D&D is bad" is a ridiculous leap of logic.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138713Well, I checked the source where he stated there was genocide on Muslims, and it sure seems like I must be very confused about the definition of genocide after checking out his suggested starting point in reading the prologue of the book.  It seems there is a war against a caliphate I guess, but I am missing the genocide, unless war means genocide.

   So it appears the real issue with that author is an imaginary war against imaginary Muslims, which oddly enough in the example he told me to look at, the hero is working with and seems allied to more imaginary Muslims......

Quote from: Shasarak;1138724Ok, then I guess an imaginary genocide is more similar to imaginary Orcs.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138690That would actually be clever. Do we think that WotC is competent enough to pull that off?

Quote from: TJS;1138748What has changed most is our comfort level with depictions of sexism or racism etc.  We tend as a society to be much more uncomfortable with seeing racism and sexism actually depicted, even if only to be condemmed.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1138754Yup. I say its become the ultimate sin. You can be a warlord out to continent with an army of hungry ghosts, but don't you DARE be sexist.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1138759I remember Ron Moore getting into trouble with some fans on a similar point when he was working on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine--some fans were annoyed with him for some stuff he wrote and from which they inferred that Klingon women weren't fully equal in Klingon society.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1138765I know in DS9 it was made explicit that women traditionally didn't lead great houses. The episode, "House of Quark" (one of my favorites) showed how exceptions were possible, but rare.
I bet it's that one.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1138767It was a.combination of various factors, including that one. But as Moore pointed out, Klingons aren't exactly sterling examples of progressive humanism in many areas, but somehow this was going too far?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1138714I remember when "they're going to take away our gaming books!" was a ridiculous leap of logic. Yet here we are.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138705You mean Scramble for Africa? The news articles I could find are very neutral-sounding.

Quote from: Shasarak;1138711Is there no difference between Orcs and Muslims in your mind?

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1138714I remember when "they're going to take away our gaming books!" was a ridiculous leap of logic. Yet here we are.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138705A Desert Called Peace is a good starting point. In the prologue, the "hero" sells teenage girls into sexual slavery.

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1138821Why don't you reference the context, crayon boy?

For those of you who aren't eating crayons, Kratman's protagonist does in fact sell the wives and daughters of a very specific enemy into slavery. In fact, they are the female contingent of the al-Qaeda expy group that killed his family with a 9/11-esque attack. Kratman's protagonist (Carrera) swears a very specific, very direct revenge, and goes on the warpath.

Note that he does reach an accord with other Muslims (I believe they're supposed to be Pashtun Afghani expies), which is how he disposes of the women. The al-Qaeda menfolk are crucified.

Is it extreme? Yes. But one might note it's kinder than what happens in another Kratman novel, Caliphate, which sees Islam being systematically wiped out after nuclear attacks against the U.S. and Britain.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1138814So the upshot of all this baby whinging is that now there's going to be a disclaimer on some of their retro 'edgy' products. Fine... I'd rather that then the product taken down or 'edited'.

I hope these SJWs enjoy their pyrrhic victory, because it's not as if WotTC give a shit. I mean, if they had a conscious and were genuine about this stuff they'd have done it years ago. It's simple cooperate knee bending... $$$$$

Quote from: WOTCA disclaimer has been added to several legacy titles on our partner distribution sites. We'd like to talk about why we've added that disclaimer, what it means, and other steps that are being taken to address a legacy of ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice in some old products.

This is an early step and not done in a vacuum. It's not enough to evaluate ourselves. As outlined in our original diversity statement (http://spr.ly/6184GTbpj), we're undergoing the process of reviewing our content and practices and hiring external consultants to review with us.

These processes take time to implement, and we'll continue to provide future updates. Unfortunately, our disclaimer was added before we were ready to fully communicate the steps we are taking. We apologize for failing to handle this situation with the care and grace it deserves.

Lastly, we want to make it clear that we condemn the harassment or bullying of those raising their concerns about our content, past or present. D&D wants to be an open, welcoming, and inclusive space. Those who do not reflect those values are not welcome in our community.

Simply put, we messed up and we're sorry. Wizards of the Coast is constantly working to be better, and we have a lot of work to do, especially so in repairing trust with our community. Thank you for continuing to use your voice so that we may continue to make meaningful change."

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1138831That's an upside. We can be the "bad boys" of RPGs, buying all the stuff with warning stickers and smoking behind the shop building.

Quote from: JeffB;1138835This is only the beginning.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1138849Hah... Makes me feel twenty years younger - Parental Advisory Explicit Content! A badge of honor to be worn with pride.

Quote from: jeff37923;1138856Considering how fed up people are getting with all of this Politically Correct bullshit getting shoved in their faces, I'll bet we see a marked increase in OSR gaming

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1138821Is it extreme? Yes. But one might note it's kinder than what happens in another Kratman novel, Caliphate, which sees Islam being systematically wiped out after nuclear attacks against the U.S. and Britain.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138710I read the prologue, the hero does not sell anyone into slavery, he  turns the fates of the defeated over to the Mullahs, and they, in accordance with Sharia law.....place the women into sex slavery and take the kids away.  The hero seems simply to abide by Islam.  I suppose that could make him a villian....so is he a bad guy for allowing the Sharia law to decide their fates, or is Sharia law bad and he should stop these people from practicing their religion?  I am confused how it is genocide, since he seems to be working directly with Muslims in the prologue.  Very confusing this genocide.

Quote from: Shasarak;1138711Is there no difference between Orcs and Muslims in your mind?

Are Muslims a purely fictional race?

If we use my logic then there is a difference between using a purely fictional Orc and using an extremely real Muslim.

Do you have any other examples?

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1138821Why don't you reference the context, crayon boy?

For those of you who aren't eating crayons, Kratman's protagonist does in fact sell the wives and daughters of a very specific enemy into slavery. In fact, they are the female contingent of the al-Qaeda expy group that killed his family with a 9/11-esque attack. Kratman's protagonist (Carrera) swears a very specific, very direct revenge, and goes on the warpath.

Note that he does reach an accord with other Muslims (I believe they're supposed to be Pashtun Afghani expies), which is how he disposes of the women. The al-Qaeda menfolk are crucified.

Is it extreme? Yes. But one might note it's kinder than what happens in another Kratman novel, Caliphate, which sees Islam being systematically wiped out after nuclear attacks against the U.S. and Britain.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138710I read the prologue, the hero does not sell anyone into slavery, he  turns the fates of the defeated over to the Mullahs, and they, in accordance with Sharia law.....place the women into sex slavery and take the kids away.  The hero seems simply to abide by Islam.  I suppose that could make him a villian....so is he a bad guy for allowing the Sharia law to decide their fates, or is Sharia law bad and he should stop these people from practicing their religion?  I am confused how it is genocide, since he seems to be working directly with Muslims in the prologue.  Very confusing this genocide.

Quote from: Shasarak;1138711Is there no difference between Orcs and Muslims in your mind?

Are Muslims a purely fictional race?

If we use my logic then there is a difference between using a purely fictional Orc and using an extremely real Muslim.

Do you have any other examples?

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1138821Why don't you reference the context, crayon boy?

For those of you who aren't eating crayons, Kratman's protagonist does in fact sell the wives and daughters of a very specific enemy into slavery. In fact, they are the female contingent of the al-Qaeda expy group that killed his family with a 9/11-esque attack. Kratman's protagonist (Carrera) swears a very specific, very direct revenge, and goes on the warpath.

Note that he does reach an accord with other Muslims (I believe they're supposed to be Pashtun Afghani expies), which is how he disposes of the women. The al-Qaeda menfolk are crucified.

Is it extreme? Yes. But one might note it's kinder than what happens in another Kratman novel, Caliphate, which sees Islam being systematically wiped out after nuclear attacks against the U.S. and Britain.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138942You misunderstood me. The book starts with the "hero" allowing children to be sold into slavery, and gets worse from there. The book expects the reader to believe he is heroic for doing this and the other atrocities he commits, which include genocide. This is pretty normal for Kratman's works. They're fascist apologia.



What I mean is: Why does it become okay to actively endorse genocide when it's against fictional people like orcs or whatever? Should our fiction actively endorse genocide by contriving situations like that? It certainly reads like colonialist or fascist apologia.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138947I did not get any sort of heroic tone from that.  Seemed more to me a means to communicate nihilism is pretty fucking horrible, and men who were good before might not stay that way in a war.    He also "allowed" the defeated to be judged by the Sharia.  Now if you are saying Sharia law is really barbaric, I think that is another charge.  I feel I got a completely different tone and message from how those characters interacted than you did.  But also, again, no genocide.  You do realize that when groups of people go to war, a lot of horrible shit happens right?

Quote from: VengerSatanis;1138952Late to the party as usual... however, I've been concerned about all of this ever since RPG Pundit made me aware of the problem's depth years ago.  Anyway, I have a petition to get WotC to remove their legacy content disclaimer.  Feel free to sign (by commenting on my blog post) the petition if you're also disgusted by what's going on: http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2020/07/wotc-disclaimer-sign-petition.html

Thanks,

VS

Quote from: VisionStorm;1138957Why da hell does that context even matter when these nihilistic books about fucked up situations are obviously endorsing these things by virtue of their psychologically damaged protagonist (with nothing left to live for now that his family is dead) taking any role in these atrocities? :(

Quote from: oggsmash;1138959My point is, I dont read it, but I also dont read porn.  Both seem to have an audience.  The point is the dude said genocide, linked a passage, and no genocide.  I do not read YA fantasy either, but people do.  I do not care how dark something someone writes.  Or irresponsible their characters are.  If you take inspiration for real life action from imaginary characters, we are about to launch into Jack Chick land.  Been there did that in the 80's, dont care to do it again.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138947I did not get any sort of heroic tone from that.  Seemed more to me a means to communicate nihilism is pretty fucking horrible, and men who were good before might not stay that way in a war.    He also "allowed" the defeated to be judged by the Sharia.  Now if you are saying Sharia law is really barbaric, I think that is another charge.  I feel I got a completely different tone and message from how those characters interacted than you did.  But also, again, no genocide.  You do realize that when groups of people go to war, a lot of horrible shit happens right?

Quote from: oggsmash;1138949I can also say, if I found the guy who murdered my wife and kid, and the people who helped him do it, slavery is not in their future.  Neither is a quick death.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1138961Yeah, I was just being sarcastic. This whole thing is silly and desperately looking for imaginary signs of bigotry and "endorsements" of atrocities (by virtue of being written in a work of FICTION exploring such dark circumstances) that apparently don't even exist to be offended about.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1138814So the upshot of all this baby whinging is that now there's going to be a disclaimer on some of their retro 'edgy' products. Fine... I'd rather that then the product taken down or 'edited'.

Quote from: The Exploited.;1138859I hope so too... The OSR is pretty untouchable for gaming at the moment. And it does'nt seem to be concerned with the few crybabies.

Quote from: VengerSatanis;1138952Late to the party as usual... however, I've been concerned about all of this ever since RPG Pundit made me aware of the problem's depth years ago.  Anyway, I have a petition to get WotC to remove their legacy content disclaimer.  Feel free to sign (by commenting on my blog post) the petition if you're also disgusted by what's going on: http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2020/07/wotc-disclaimer-sign-petition.html

Thanks,

VS

Quote from: oggsmash;1138965I have doubts seeing a scenario where children would help kill my wife and kids, but a super smart person like you knows this, so straw man away.  

Quote from: oggsmash;1138965The Blue Jinn did what the MULLAH DECREED.  SHARIA LAW DETERMINED THE FATE OF THE FALLEN.  I think that is a point the muslim hating author is also making.  But I guess you forgot that part.  Do you eat crayons?

Quote from: TJS;1138968So this Tom Kratman guy...

What D&D books did he write?

Quote from: Omega;1138966You'd like to think that. But the OSR had been showing SJW infiltration over the years. This on top of some if its own problems of elitism and game theft under the aegis of the OSR. Theres a reason its occasionally called LOSR.ahem.

QuoteOriginally Posted by WOTC

Simply put, we messed up and we're sorry. Wizards of the Coast is constantly working to be better, and we have a lot of work to do, especially so in repairing trust with our community. Thank you for continuing to use your voice so that we may continue to make meaningful change."

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138946What I mean is: Why does it become okay to actively endorse genocide when it's against fictional people like orcs or whatever? Should our fiction actively endorse genocide by contriving situations like that? It certainly reads like colonialist or fascist apologia.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138974I also agree I read nothing about Genocide.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138974I think all out war has happened A LOT in Human history, and I do not remember every single entity waging it was fascist.  I will bring this to my earlier point, if you really think people are really inspired to act based on imaginary actions and imaginary characters, we are headed to Jack Chick territory, and that is exactly what you are conflating regarding orcs and imaginary space Muslims.

• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power endorses an abusive co-dependent relationship and nobody has a problem with it because the relationship is between two lesbians.
  
• Terra Formars depicts Martian cockroaches in painfully obvious blackface and fans in the Anglosphere say that it isn't blackface.
  

Quote from: Shasarak;1138981Are Orcs just Humans wearing rubber Orc masks?

If they are then you can treat them like Humans.

To be fair most players treat the different races as Humans wearing a rubber mask.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138989So I guess a campaign to sail to a new land where savage cannibal orcs who torture and enslave the conquered to establish a colony is off the table?  Because I dont want people to be doing their fun wrong.  I want them to win bigly, and that badwrongfun is no good.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138997WC1 and 2, Those were before the new woke age, where we can apply critical theory to all things, and disern what people should or should not take in as entertainment.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138997So indoctrination is a problem these days in entertainment?  But it does not influence people's behavior?  Confused.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139000There were tons of discussions in the Scrolls of Lore community about ignoring the retcons from WC3 and speculating on orcish culture beyond caricature.


People ignore problematic (or just plain incompetent) content in their consumed media when it fits their political screed. This tendency has been exacerbated by modern political polarization and it makes nuanced debate impossible.

Quote from: oggsmash;1139001So people's behavior is affected by entertainment they consume, or it is not?

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139002I never said it was. I'm not remotely qualified to even begin to answer that question.

Quote from: TJS;1139005People don't seem to be arguing that entertainment affects behaviour so much any more.  I use to see that more but these days the argument (to the extent there is one - ie. very little) seems to be that people will feel unsafe or unwelcome by racist depictions in rpgs.  Leaving aside how ridiculously broad the definition on "unsafe" has become, it is not prima facie ridiculous that a clearly racist element may make someone feel unwelcome.

The problem is that you can't meaningfully discuss this without some concept of the reasonable person - ie. would a reasonable person see this element as being racist.  Even if we acknowledge that the reasonable person may need to be in some cases a person from a particular minority that criteria still needs to apply.  After all two people from the same minority may disagree about whether something is racist.  The sensible and fair thing to do would be to listen to both and to make a judgement about who is the more reasonable.   This is of course potentially very flawed but is really the best we can do.  The current thinking seems to be that something is racist if any person from a minority claims it to be.  (In some cases not even that - sometimes it seems something is racist if any argument or interpretation can be put forward at all that suggest racism - this is about like the ontoligical argument for god - I can imagine god therefore he exists; I can make an narrative about why this is racist - therefore it is).

Which is a shame, because if there is genuine racism, it gets lost in all the nonsense and exaggeration.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1138996To be fair, I cannot name any campaign setting in which we are expected to lead genocidal crusades against the humanoids. I can't remember any stories of games where a party did that.

The only time I've ever heard of that coming up is when (to paraphrase a poorly remembered example) the party paladin objects to preemptively attacking some orcish raiders because he mistakenly thinks the other party members are endorsing genocide.

The orc genocide dilemma seems to be more of a running joke than anything else.

Quote from: oggsmash;1139003Well, what is indoctrinating them?  You said they ignore problematic behavior in imaginary entertainment.   You seem quite qualified to point out problematic behavior in entertainment, to what end I am not certain of, so what is indoctrinating them then?

Quote from: TJS;1139005People don't seem to be arguing that entertainment affects behaviour so much any more.  I use to see that more but these days the argument (to the extent there is one - ie. very little) seems to be that people will feel unsafe or unwelcome by racist depictions in rpgs.  Leaving aside how ridiculously broad the definition on "unsafe" has become, it is not prima facie ridiculous that a clearly racist element may make someone feel unwelcome.

The problem is that you can't meaningfully discuss this without some concept of the reasonable person - ie. would a reasonable person see this element as being racist.  Even if we acknowledge that the reasonable person may need to be in some cases a person from a particular minority that criteria still needs to apply.  After all two people from the same minority may disagree about whether something is racist.  The sensible and fair thing to do would be to listen to both and to make a judgement about who is the more reasonable.   This is of course potentially very flawed but is really the best we can do.  The current thinking seems to be that something is racist if any person from a minority claims it to be.  (In some cases not even that - sometimes it seems something is racist if any argument or interpretation can be put forward at all that suggest racism - this is about like the ontoligical argument for god - I can imagine god therefore he exists; I can make an narrative about why this is racist - therefore it is).

Which is a shame, because if there is genuine racism, it gets lost in all the nonsense and exaggeration.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139011There are a couple of TSR settings but you are probably too young to remember them.

Quote from: oggsmash;1138974imaginary space Muslims.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139026In Classic Traveller, space marines are issued with a cutlass. Which is basically a scimitar. No culture is outlined in CT, but reading between the lines we can conclude that space marines are Ottoman Turks. Janissaries! I'm imagining very colourful vacc suits, the men singing songs in Turk as they carry out a boarding action.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139021Well that's certainly disturbing.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139027Muslims don't get enough love in scifi. They're typically either absent or only present as terrorist caricatures.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139027Muslims don't get enough love in scifi. They're typically either absent or only present as terrorist caricatures.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139028I dont know how we all managed to survive the horror.

Maybe we were all too racist to notice.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139029I hear that A Desert Called Peace treats Muslims respectfully.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1139032So? Who the fuck cares? I'm guessing this is your western first world lenses, and that Muslim authors do write plenty of Muslim led fiction.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139027Muslims don't get enough love in scifi. They're typically either absent or only present as terrorist caricatures.

Quote from: Trinculoisdead;1139060There's a big Muslim presence in the Mars trilogy.

Quote from: TJS;1139061Yes!  How did I forget that!

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139021I think I know an easy way to determine whether something is racist: pretend it's a human being.

Quote from: oggsmash;1139007I agree with what you are saying, and it seems to be an application of critical theory to constantly deconstruct all the things...so they can be re made in a non problematic image I guess, so people can stop being abused by the problematic stuff they see in their political entertainment (like killing orcs.....) I guess.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1139066Because you're waaaaaaaycist!!!




LOL. That's precious...and fucking insane.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139083I never said it was foolproof.

I don't think saying "anybody who notices parallels between the way fictional races are described and real world racist caricatures are the real racists!" is any kind of improvement.

I definitely think there's room for reasonable debate.

I also think there's a distinct possibility that somebody could write a deliberate racist tract and conceal their intentions by replacing all mentions of real world people with fantasy races. Does that make their work suddenly not racist?

I'm not saying that we should barred from playing violent murder simulators. I love playing my copy of Postal 2. Sometimes it's cathartic to slaughter droves of innocent people with a machete.

Quote from: oggsmash;1139084I think someone with an agenda can see any damn thing they want to see.  I also think the same agenda will drive them to make a case for what they see, and then the tard loop starts.  Its a shit eating monster that grows stronger and more powerful by eating its own poop.  Gonna pass, and not read into everything every where.  If someone does put some racist whatever in something, let the market decide.  Not a politburo.

Quote from: Myrdin Potter;1138381Now on every older D&D book on DMs Guild.

"We recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website, does not reflect the values of the Dungeon & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end."

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139021I don't know how media influences people, but considering all the stupidity on all sides of the political spectrum... I have a suspicion it does something.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139021For example: "with proper training, humans may develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion."

Quote from: David Johansen;1139096Something that occurred to me recently is that the Social Justice Warriors must really hate pulp and that it's the pulp elements of D&D that they hate.  I'm not sure what it means, but I doubt Doc Savage, The Shadow, Tarzan, or John Carter would get a pass if they were more popular.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139093Yes. "News" and SOCIAL Media (you know, stuff that deals with the real world) demonstrably has an influence on people. ENTERTAINMENT Media (esp. FICTION), on the other hand, has been scapegoated for every social ill people can't be bothered to take responsibility for, for centuries since the time of Shakespeare. And in all that time the conclusive evidence that it actually has any long term psychological effects or influence over people's believes has been basically zero.

Because it isn't REAL.



I agree. With proper training, humans may develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion.

In real life.

And people who don't get that training (or are trained to the contrary) tend to grow up to be fucked up human beings. I am confident that if more intelligent species evolved in this planet this would be more true for some species than others, but likely true of all of them to some extent. If orcs were real they would probably need more training than humans do. Halflings? Maybe less.

And right now we are being trained for the opposite of empathy, love, and compassion.

By the people presuming themselves to be the guardians of empathy, love, and compassion (and "equality").

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139104Orcs are not real. They are not written by speculative biologists as a thought experiment. They are a fictional construct created for the purpose of being killed for xp and loot in a multiplayer tabletop game. The way they are typically described takes obvious cues from colonialist propaganda. Some players who are part of groups historically victimized by colonialism find those descriptions disturbing and repulsive.

I think we should be able to calmly discuss and incorporate constructive criticism into our fiction intended for broad audiences. Failing to do so will only worsen the flame wars.

Quote from: oggsmash;1139105Every person alive today has had a distant relative who has suffered at some form of colonialism or being conquered.  So this is just again, bullshit.   Especially since the people who suffered from "modern...white" colonialism are your only concern, it is worth noting anyone who suffered from more modern colonialism, age of sail forward, had conquered, killed, enslaved, genocided, or colonized the area they were in before they fell to a stronger entity.  This is just bullshit.  The cycle of all human history is someone getting their asses kicked after kicking someone's ass.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139109If you're upset about how vikings and visigoths are depicted as caricatures in media, then you should start petitions for them to be depicted respectfully in media.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139104Orcs are not real. They are not written by speculative biologists as a thought experiment. They are a fictional construct created for the purpose of being killed for xp and loot in a multiplayer tabletop game. The way they are typically described takes obvious cues from colonialist propaganda. Some players who are part of groups historically victimized by colonialism find those descriptions disturbing and repulsive.

I think we should be able to calmly discuss and incorporate constructive criticism into our fiction intended for broad audiences. Failing to do so will only worsen the flame wars.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139104Orcs are not real. They are not written by speculative biologists as a thought experiment.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139104They are a fictional construct created for the purpose of being killed for xp and loot in a multiplayer tabletop game.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139104The way they are typically described takes obvious cues from colonialist propaganda.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139104Some players who are part of groups historically victimized by colonialism find those descriptions disturbing and repulsive.

I think we should be able to calmly discuss and incorporate constructive criticism into our fiction intended for broad audiences. Failing to do so will only worsen the flame wars.

Quote from: LiferGamer;1139118The Aztecs had amazing art, complex language and mythology, and were conquering assholes that dominated their neighbors and engaged in blood sacrifices.

QuoteOrcs are anthrophagic rapists that have no art, science, and worship a bunch of bloodthirsty gawds and gawdesses that encourage them the do the same.  Nature or nurture?  Well, when BOTH are pushing you to be a 'might makes right' survival of the fittest sociopath, it's hard to tell.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139123It's impossible to have calm constructive discussions that begin with the premise of accepting some people's histrionic subjective opinions and interpretation of media as settled fact, and that certain works of fiction where bigoted because they said so, with the added implication that you are probably also a bigot (or at least too privileged to know the difference) if enjoyed those creative works or find no fault with them.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1139162Fucking THIS^. It's the intellectual equivalence of 'Racist says what?'. The arrogance and hubris of it.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139083I never said it was foolproof.

I don't think saying "anybody who notices parallels between the way fictional races are described and real world racist caricatures are the real racists!" is any kind of improvement.

I definitely think there's room for reasonable debate.

I also think there's a distinct possibility that somebody could write a deliberate racist tract and conceal their intentions by replacing all mentions of real world people with fantasy races. Does that make their work suddenly not racist?

I'm not saying that we should barred from playing violent murder simulators. I love playing my copy of Postal 2. Sometimes it's cathartic to slaughter droves of innocent people with a machete.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139104Some players who are part of groups historically victimized by colonialism find those descriptions disturbing and repulsive.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1139104Some players who are part of groups historically victimized by colonialism find those descriptions disturbing and repulsive.

Quote from: kythri;1139091I haven't gotten to the end of this thread yet, so forgive me if this is already addressed, but:

Has anyone actually seen an edited PDF with this disclaimer, as of yet?

I ask, as my copy of Oriental Adventures from DTRPG, was last updated on 2014/02/03.  There's the new disclaimer on the product page itself, but it doesn't appear that they're actually editing the PDFs themselves (yet).

Quote from: David Johansen;1139096Something that occurred to me recently is that the Social Justice Warriors must really hate pulp and that it's the pulp elements of D&D that they hate.  I'm not sure what it means, but I doubt Doc Savage, The Shadow, Tarzan, or John Carter would get a pass if they were more popular.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1139200If they replaced every instance of "Race" with "Species" in every RPG, would that shut you the fuck up with your idiotic delusions about how calling Orcs "savage" is like calling black people "savage"?

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139146That description, however, fits a ton of cultures. Including those Western civilization regards as its revered forefathers. Not really an argument, much less so in a fantasy RPG.

QuoteThe problem you can see here is twofold:
a.) Explicitly conflating "race" or species if you will with culture.
b.) Intentionally writing a culture so that it has no redeeming features and you can feel good about killing its members. I don't really want or need such a thing.

QuoteThere is no and I would argue there cannot be any real human culture (for whatever 'a culture' is anyway) or society that would make me feel alright about slaughtering anyone born into it, including children. And if you write a fictional culture with the intention of making it so, I would ask you: Why?

QuoteOrcs in Tolkien were basically robots created to do evil. Or clones, if you will. There is no indication whatsoever that they had a society, families or that they were in the terms discussed here a "race". They are simple, if intelligent tools created by an evil wizard.

And that's fine by me.

QuoteBut if you depart from that in fantasy RPGs and make them a "race" or a culture, that concept no longer works.

QuoteBecause then you inevitably get questions like "Are they all like that? Why? Are there any ones among them who want to change that? Are they born like that? If you raised their children different, would they not be like that? If you overpowered them and taught them better ways, could they see the benefit?" and so on.

QuoteAnd if your answer is that you don't care and you just want enemies to murder without any second thoughts, then I'd ask why they need to be a 'race' or a 'culture' instead of the original concept outlined above?

Quote from: LiferGamer;1139239My ancestors didn't drag slaves to the top of a pyramid and cut hearts out to keep the sun from going out.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1139242Paging Geeky Bugle! :D:p:cool:

I'm sure ALL of us have ancestors who did shitty things to innocent people somewhere in our family tree.

But regardless, we are NOT responsible for their actions. Only our own.

That's much of my hatred for WotC's woke nonsense because they are pushing "collective guilt" on D&D players, as if we are all responsible if (and I do mean if) anyone in the past was excluded from the hobby because of their sex junk or skin color. The whole "we must do better" means we - as the collective hobby community - did something deemed "wrong" in the past. And by "wrong", I mean whatever -ist is most popular on Twitter today.

Based on my experience with the RPG community over 4+ decades, we did just fine and as a whole, we went out of our way to be welcoming to all (which apparently was also our mistake).

Quote from: LiferGamer;1139239Full stop.  No, they don't.  My ancestors didn't drag slaves to the top of a pyramid and cut hearts out to keep the sun from going out.

QuoteSo you agree that this nonsense about 'orcs are people too' is exactly that nonsense?

QuoteSo you can HAVE the hordes of evil rapacious monsters that the heroes fight. Otherwise you end up playing Power Rangers where the mooks are just made of clay, or where all the villains minions 'happen' to be robots like a children's afternoon television show.

QuoteThe flip side of this is what happens if you try, and the little orc whelp bites the fingers off the nursemaid?

QuoteI honestly suspect we're most of the way to agreement

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139254Of course I don't know exactly who your ancestors were but under the IME reasonable assumption that you identify at least a major portion of them as Anglo-Saxon, Germanic or Celtish/British/Gaulish you're correct - because they did not build pyramids.
Sacrifice humans for religious ceremonies - they absolutely did. And how.

And of course, I was also referring to Roman culture, which prided itself of not having human sacrifice but practiced the brutal slaughter of prisoners and slaves under other pretenses - which is what I would call moral relativism. Your definition of moral relativism seems to be an entirely defensive one - i.e. simply the opposite of your personal moral certainties. I don't see that as helpful or relevant because it is simply a rephrasing of 'I know what's right'.

QuoteNo, orcs in D&D are indeed presented as people. Tolkien orcs aren't.


What would be the problem if they were all made of clay? Or grew from spores, as WH40K Orks do?

QuoteThere is no indication that they are capable of doing that. But more relevantly, there is no reason why they should. If you posit that they just behave like wild animals (who don't behave like that, actually, but oh well...) then how did they ever become any kind of culture in the first place?

QuoteI don't see that.
It appears to me that your stance is exactly what I had described in my previous posting. Correct me if I'm wrong: You want orcs just as targets to be murdered. But apparently, at the same time you don't want them to be soulless automatons in the vein of Tolkien's orcs, because that would be 'like a children's show'.

QuoteSo you want (in the game of course) to feel good about slaughtering orcs, but at the same time you want them to have families you thereby destroy and children you thereby orphan, in short you want them to be able to suffer; and you want your orcs to be tailor-written to be such justifiable targets of genocide.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139258Okay, so why again do you want to portray your orcs like the Nazis portrayed Jews? I don't see what that gives me in game terms.

(And yes, I very much know that genocidal brutality in a game is not the same as in the real world.)

Quote from: SHARK;1139257Orcs are much like Rats, except for being upright in a humanoid stature, and have the power of vocalized speech. They additionally possess the greater intellect to make use of armour and weapons, as well as other tools and war machines. They are in strong respects much like the Rats.

Therefore, no one should feel remorse about hunting down and killing Orcs, wherever they are found. Also much like Rats, on occasion, there is a particular offshoot breed or an individual Rat that demonstrates a pleasant and friendly character. In such circumstances, we customarily permit such friendly Rats to live under our guardianship. The rest of the Rat hordes? They are exterminated ruthlessly. Again, an apt analogy with Orcs seems quite appropriate.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139258Okay, so why again do you want to portray your orcs like the Nazis portrayed Jews? I don't see what that gives me in game terms.

(And yes, I very much know that genocidal brutality in a game is not the same as in the real world.)

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139258Okay, so why again do you want to portray your orcs like the Nazis portrayed Jews? I don't see what that gives me in game terms.

(And yes, I very much know that genocidal brutality in a game is not the same as in the real world.)

Quote from: Omega;1139265off topic. But... I dont recall Jews laying waste to civilizations and carrying off the populace to eat. So not exactly the same thing there.

It is though still a poor comparison as orcs are not animals.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139258Okay, so why again do you want to portray your orcs like the Nazis portrayed Jews? I don't see what that gives me in game terms.

(And yes, I very much know that genocidal brutality in a game is not the same as in the real world.)

Quote from: Omega;1139265off topic. But... I dont recall Jews laying waste to civilizations and carrying off the populace to eat.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139270Me neither, but in the mind of antisemites they did such things. Especially the former.
(I was mostly moved to draw this comparison due to the use of the 'rat' analogy, which was a common antisemitic one. If I replaced 'orc' with 'jew' in that posting and changed the section about intelligence into enabling them to manipulate and infiltrate rather than build war machines, I guarantee you I'd have no problem convincing even scholars it was a translated quote from Der Stürmer.)

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139270Point is, why do you want to write your fantasy creatures like that? Orcs aren't real. When they 'lay waste to civilizations and carry off the populace to eat' they do so because the writer decides that's what they do. And I don't see what the narrative function of that is. To be precise, I don't see what the narrative function of also giving them the appearance of a 'race' or a 'culture' is.

Quote from: TJS;1139273I have to admit I don't get Orcs in D&D.  I haven't used them in a long time and I don't really see any function they fill that couldn't be better be filled by human bandits or raiders.

QuoteThe last time I used them was a while after the Firefly movie where I basically ripped off reavers and made them a failed magical attempt to turn goblins (which I made peaceful farmers) into supersoldiers.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139270Point is, why do you want to write your fantasy creatures like that? Orcs aren't real. When they 'lay waste to civilizations and carry off the populace to eat' they do so because the writer decides that's what they do. And I don't see what the narrative function of that is.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139294To give the PCs someone they don't feel bad about killing. It's the same reason Space Invaders didn't give a personality and culture to the little spaceships sliding back and forth across the screen.

Quote from: TJS;1139273I have to admit I don't get Orcs in D&D.  I haven't used them in a long time and I don't really see any function they fill that couldn't be better be filled by human bandits or raiders.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139298The 'sapient human-like beings with culture and civilization... and they are all evil' does not click with me.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139275Are supposed to never accurately describe things

QuoteWhy shouldn't we write fantasy creatures like that?

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139303You cannot "accurately describe" things that do not exist.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139303Orcs do not exist. In general, species of sapient humanoid beings with advanced cultures and human-like social life who are also vicious animals driven by instinct to destroy other intelligent life do not exist either.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139303Reasons of taste, mostly? I would not ever say that fantasies about being justified in slaughtering even small children because they belong to an inherently evil race of quasi-humans should be banned or censored. But I would not want to play something like that, nor would I, as a publisher, support it.

This is way off-topic wrt OA. As I originally said, throwing in OA's scattering of at worst misguided stereotypes with wholesale genocide fantasies is one of the problem.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139294To give the PCs someone they don't feel bad about killing.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139314No one feels bad about killing human bandits either. I've never seen anyone quit a Cyberpunk session cuz they couldn't take killing humans anymore in a world where all the enemies were basically human (except for the occasional drone or cyber goon that's so heavily modified they're more robot than human). Orcs are traditionally monsters because in Middle Earth they were intended to represent the corrupted beings that were more machine-like or living weapons than human.

But even as a species with a violent culture (as presented in D&D) they still represent an added threat of an enemy that can rarely be reasoned with, and represent the darker impulses that humans have demonstrated throughout history. This is further reinforced by the presence of the orcs' dark gods, who demand blood sacrifice from them, and their spread through conquest of the "lesser" races. Which helps explain how an intelligent species could be driven to such ends: they were created by their gods with such purpose and indoctrinated into it. Could orcs turn from such ways? Perhaps, but that only adds more depth to them in my view.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139297I get then but why then, make them into a 'race' or a 'culture' rather than have them be unnatural monsters?

Quote from: Wulfhelm(in response to post that orcs are evil so we don't feel bad about killing them)I get then but why then, make them into a 'race' or a 'culture' rather than have them be unnatural monsters?

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1139301Likewise, but I'm coming at it from the same baseline as Tolkien, who had similar issues with his Orcs as he developed his legendarium. One approach I want to try if I ever get around to running a game, inspired by 4E, 13th Age, 3E Ravenloft, discussions on TBP before the rot set in so deep, and elsewhere:

   1. Goblinoids are generally wicked fey who construct bodies out of natural material, and 'killing' them just destroys that body and weakens them as they have to spend time and energy to rebuild, a la Tolkien's Valar and Maiar.

   2. The ones 4E labelled as "Chaotic Evil"--orcs, gnolls, sahuagin, troglodytes--are basically uplifted beasts with elaborate infusion of knowledge/programming but no real rationality or self-awareness. They can use tools and weapons and have sufficient 'AI' to fight effectively and even communicate using preprogrammed responses, but there's no 'person' there. Half-orcs are the result of attempts to apply the process to human beings, but with mixed results and no predilection to evil.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139314And neither do happy friendly orcs singing Kumbaya. But they could exist hypothetically, particularly in the context of a fictional world.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139349I could just imagine the reports back to the King:  The Orcs conducted a mostly peaceful raid into our Kingdom, my Lord.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139355"They were singing a song called 'Kumbaya', my Lord, and asked the farmers politely to part with their crops, before heading out back into the wilderness. The villagers were terrified and tipped over a few wagons as they fled from the horde, but the orcs helped them lift up a few of the carts on their way out. Everything's back in order, my Lord...except for the missing crops, which one of the lead orcs insisted on paying for..." *hands the King a bag of gold*

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139297I get then but why then, make them into a 'race' or a 'culture' rather than have them be unnatural monsters?

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139314No one feels bad about killing human bandits either. I've never seen anyone quit a Cyberpunk session cuz they couldn't take killing humans anymore in a world where all the enemies were basically human

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1139317Obviously people fall on different sides of whether orcs are soulless creatures, or noble green savages.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139420Because we have the urge to kill humans who are different from us.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139420Sigh. Why does everything have to be the emo version now? I don't know about you thespy commies, but I stopped listening to The Cure long ago.

Quote from: Tyberious Funk;1139447By deduction, does that means I'm a thespy commie if I still listen to The Cure?  Sheeeeet.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139449You may be a humanitarian pacifist, Wulfhelm, and that is laudable. But judging from popular media, you are not a majority.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139453"bandit babies".

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139420That's true! Now put some bandit or cyber babies in there, some unarmed women and children, and even the combatant males should be given names and an obviously full life of friends and faith and being basically decent and see how things go.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1138958Dunno if WOTC will listen, but signed.

Quote from: 1989;1139491Nobody should be buying anything from WotC anymore, and nobody should be playing 5e anymore, either.

Not like it will make a difference, but it's the principle.

Like SpinachCat has preached many times, here: people need to get a backbone and stop supporting it. Spend your dollars elsewhere, with publishers who are not bowing down to politics.

Quote from: Mistwell;1139509Oh here comes the moral police, telling others to not play games they like because the company behind them violates some personal morality rules of the user. I do appreciate you included the word "preach" with your post. At least you're honest that you're practicing a religion.

How about this for a principal: "Don't tell others it's badwrongfun to play games they like."

Here is another principal: "Don't tell others to make a sacrifice you're unwilling to make." You don't fucking play 5e, so you asking others to not play 5e is no sacrifice for you, just for them. Let's see you stop playing a game you enjoy because someone else tells you the company that makes it violates some moral principal of theirs?

I love how guys like you think you're better than social justice warriors to despise. You're just the other side of the same coin, moralizing to others to make sacrifices for your cause to signal to like-minded people that you're in good standing with your bubble community of fanatics.

Quote from: Brad;1139515Did you actually type all this out with a straight face?

Quote from: Mistwell;1139509Oh here comes the moral police, telling others to not play games they like because the company behind them violates some personal morality rules of the user. I do appreciate you included the word "preach" with your post. At least you're honest that you're practicing a religion.

How about this for a principal: "Don't tell others it's badwrongfun to play games they like."

Here is another principal: "Don't tell others to make a sacrifice you're unwilling to make." You don't fucking play 5e, so you asking others to not play 5e is no sacrifice for you, just for them. Let's see you stop playing a game you enjoy because someone else tells you the company that makes it violates some moral principal of theirs?

I love how guys like you think you're better than social justice warriors to despise. You're just the other side of the same coin, moralizing to others to make sacrifices for your cause to signal to like-minded people that you're in good standing with your bubble community of fanatics.

Quote from: Thornhammer;1139474...The aboleth begins to dissipate into a cloud of foul liquid.  Its final thoughts...are sufficient to cause damage, everybody give me an Intelligence check....

Quote from: Brad;1139515Did you actually type all this out with a straight face?

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1139616Yeah, tots the same shit as trying to ruin your life for writing/playing the wrong kind of game or in the wrong way right?

Quote from: Mistwell;1139747WOTC is not trying to "ruin your life" for playing the wrong kind of game you fucking hysterical fragile drama queen. Who are you, the "Leave Britney Alone" guy?

(https://i.imgflip.com/488q72.jpg)

If they are trying to "ruin your life" (which is news to me, you should post about it), I can understand you not wanting to play their games. But I STILL cannot understand you telling other people who enjoy their games to not play them. Just move the fuck on to the games you do enjoy.

Quote from: Mistwell;1139747WOTC is not trying to "ruin your life" for playing the wrong kind of game you fucking hysterical fragile drama queen. Who are you, the "Leave Britney Alone" guy?

(https://i.imgflip.com/488q72.jpg)

If they are trying to "ruin your life" (which is news to me, you should post about it), I can understand you not wanting to play their games. But I STILL cannot understand you telling other people who enjoy their games to not play them. Just move the fuck on to the games you do enjoy.

Quote from: Mistwell;1139509Oh here comes the moral police, telling others to not play games they like because the company behind them violates some personal morality rules of the user. I do appreciate you included the word "preach" with your post. At least you're honest that you're practicing a religion.

How about this for a principal: "Don't tell others it's badwrongfun to play games they like."

Here is another principal: "Don't tell others to make a sacrifice you're unwilling to make." You don't fucking play 5e, so you asking others to not play 5e is no sacrifice for you, just for them. Let's see you stop playing a game you enjoy because someone else tells you the company that makes it violates some moral principal of theirs?

I love how guys like you think you're better than social justice warriors to despise. You're just the other side of the same coin, moralizing to others to make sacrifices for your cause to signal to like-minded people that you're in good standing with your bubble community of fanatics.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1139752Because it's the goddamn company caving in to one podcast. Why should WOTC put "warning labels" on ALL their previous products?

Do you agree with WOTC that ALL of the pre-5th edition prouduct is offensive?

Do you think the slacktivists were correct, and that Oriental Adventures should have been taken off the marketplace?

Or are you here to try and troll people, and you don't actually give a shit beyond the trolling?

Quote from: 1989;1139491Nobody should be buying anything from WotC anymore, and nobody should be playing 5e anymore, either.

Not like it will make a difference, but it's the principle.

Like SpinachCat has preached many times, here: people need to get a backbone and stop supporting it. Spend your dollars elsewhere, with publishers who are not bowing down to politics.

Quote from: Mistwell;1139746Absolutely. I detest moralizing shits who tell others to not play games they enjoy because of their personal morality issues.

Quote from: Razor 007;1139771Not buying from WOTC anymore, is an argument I understand.  Not playing 5E anymore with products I already own, is not an argument I understand?  I intend to use my own property.  They've already made and spent that money by now, anyway.

Those who have already bought into 5E, should just play 5E in a way that's unapproved by WOTC.  "That" is an interesting idea.......  5E Adventures, in The Land of Forever Frig!!!

Quote from: TJS;1139273I have to admit I don't get Orcs in D&D.  I haven't used them in a long time and I don't really see any function they fill that couldn't be better be filled by human bandits or raiders.

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1139618Ok, that was funny.  Now I want to see that last-thoughts of monsters product come to fruition.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139864I was watching this zombie show, and they found a baby who turned out to be a zombie baby. Everyone was hesitant to shoot it, then it ate the special forces guy, and so they all confronted it in a standoff, and opened up together.

Orcs are evil. Kill orc babies.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139864Orcs are evil. Kill orc babies.

Quote from: Valatar;1139894I honestly still don't see the issue with Oriental Adventures, aside from that it really should've been titled Japanese Adventures given that the content and playtesters were basically all Japanese and not any significant percentage from the rest of Asia.  I get that 'oriental' is considered an outdated word for that area, but it wasn't at the time, nor did it ever have a particularly shady connotation.  After all, we still call Japan Japan, even though that's not and never has been the country's name.  You'd think that would probably be even worse.

Quote from: TJS;1139907You're not supposed to see.  You're just supposed to accept that there is a problem because people who know better than you say there is.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139873Is it bad to say that a Zombie Baby could be useful resource?  You could make a little cage and bring it out when you need it.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139913That's what Boromir thought about the Ring. Some things are just evil and must be destroyed!

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139913That's what Boromir thought about the Ring. Some things are just evil and must be destroyed!

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1139752Because it's the goddamn company caving in to one podcast. Why should WOTC put "warning labels" on ALL their previous products?

Do you agree with WOTC that ALL of the pre-5th edition prouduct is offensive?

Do you think the slacktivists were correct, and that Oriental Adventures should have been taken off the marketplace?

Or are you here to try and troll people, and you don't actually give a shit beyond the trolling?

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1139755Yeah, you were tots talking about WotC when you typed this:

You were tots not comparing us with the SJWs, no sire, not you, you've never been a disingenuous twat playing Mote & Bailey and moving from one to the other when someone challenges your bullshit.

FECK OFF!

Quote from: Brad;1139772You do realize that is EXACTLY what the SJWs are trying to do, right? But instead of just saying, "Don't play that garbage," like people here, they actively seek to destroy your life unless you capitulate and burn all the copies of the books you have and delete the PDFs.

You might THINK you have the moral high ground, but you're just next on the chopping block.

Quote from: Mistwell;1139922You ARE behaving like SJWs if you endorse a message of "don't play 5e even if you like it" and "you're ruining my life" by putting a disclaimer on a PDF of an old book almost nobody is buying.  If you don't like the comparison, then don't behave like whiny little entitled shits maybe? Because you are in fact just the other side of the same coin with SJW the way you're behaving right now. There is nothing smart about this kind of bullshit behavior.

Quote from: Mistwell;1139922You ARE behaving like SJWs if you endorse a message of "don't play 5e even if you like it" and "you're ruining my life" by putting a disclaimer on a PDF of an old book almost nobody is buying.  If you don't like the comparison, then don't behave like whiny little entitled shits maybe? Because you are in fact just the other side of the same coin with SJW the way you're behaving right now. There is nothing smart about this kind of bullshit behavior.

Quote from: Brad;1139772You do realize that is EXACTLY what the SJWs are trying to do, right? But instead of just saying, "Don't play that garbage," like people here, they actively seek to destroy your life unless you capitulate and burn all the copies of the books you have and delete the PDFs.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139927Nazi, evangelical Christian, SJW, communist, child rapist, I just don't care. Is it good?

QuoteNow, pass the cheesey snacks, shut the fuck up and roll the dice. We have baby orcs to kill!

Quote from: Mistwell;1139921None of that ruins your life. They didn't pull any books they put up a meaningless disclaimer. But even if they had pulled some old PDFs it would not "ruin your life". Particularly since it wasn't that long ago that these books were not even for sale. You're being a drama queen. Admit your life is not ruined by any of this bullshit if you want to be taken seriously.

Quote from: Mistwell;1139922You ARE behaving like SJWs if you endorse a message of "don't play 5e even if you like it" and "you're ruining my life" by putting a disclaimer on a PDF of an old book almost nobody is buying.  If you don't like the comparison, then don't behave like whiny little entitled shits maybe? Because you are in fact just the other side of the same coin with SJW the way you're behaving right now. There is nothing smart about this kind of bullshit behavior.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1139967Everyone on this thread, except perhaps for you (shock) has expressed concern about WOTC actions towards old editions. Some people are discussing the best way to express this concern to WOTC. Hey, sunshine! Boycotts are a valid way of communicating dissatisfaction.
Are you afraid it might get results?

Quote from: Mistwell;1139923Brad, the tactic of "Don't play games you like because the company that makes them is morally objectionable to me" is in fact just as bad as what SJW do. WOTC is not in fact trying to "destroy your life" by putting a stupid disclaimer on their old PDFs, and endorsing that kind of message is just as whiny as any of the bullshit SJWs do. If you think behaving exactly like SJW is the way to beat SJWs, good luck with that. And yes, I do have the fucking moral high ground on both SJWs and the weak ass whiny bullshit moral policing going on in this thread simultaneously. It's not hard, as y'all are all hanging in the gutter together at the moment. Be better. Call out your own when the behave like this. It's what we'd want those on the left to do to SJWs, right?

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139958Okay... not that I'm not critical of those podcasters/twitter heroes, their arguments and their goals: But that is quite far from what they actually want, namely for WotC to pull or demonetize the book. Which is fitting, seeing as how they apparently got it from [download site name redacted] themselves.
That is less of a slippery slope argument and more of a slippery chasm argument.

Quote from: Brad;1139975You sure about that? Are you?

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1139420Because we have the urge to kill humans who are different from us. So in our fantasy (including modern zombie films and games) we want something which is human enough to satisfy the urge to kill humans who are different from us, but inhuman enough that we don't feel guilty about it.

Quote from: Mistwell;1139509How about this for a principal: "Don't tell others it's badwrongfun to play games they like."

Quote from: Mistwell;1139509Here is another principal: "Don't tell others to make a sacrifice you're unwilling to make."

Quote from: Razor 007;1139771Not buying from WOTC anymore, is an argument I understand.  Not playing 5E anymore with products I already own, is not an argument I understand?  I intend to use my own property.  They've already made and spent that money by now, anyway.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139873Is it bad to say that a Zombie Baby could be useful resource?  You could make a little cage and bring it out when you need it.

Quote from: Omega;1139920Or Weyland-Yutani in Aliens thinking that the aliens could be controlled and used.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1140026Hmmm... yes.

Look, I've listened in to some of these guys' podcasts. They are ignoramuses, but they are not that delusional.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1139967Are you afraid it might get results?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1140028We did that!! But as we couldn't find a soundproof box, the GM had us unable to get a good night's sleep because the dead baby kept crying and drawing attention to us. He was super creeped out that we captured the thing and planned to use it as a mascot/weapon.

So we left it nailed to a door of a house. Which upset the GM even more and we had to have THE TALK about not giving our group of players toys that you don't want us to have.

Quote from: Omega;1140041Im more afraid it will get exactly the wrong result.

A petition to WOTC was just so blatantly stupid a thing to do. Its like petitioning Hitler to stop being mean to the Jews.

WOTC will take this to Habro and spin doctor it as damning proof that WOTC is in the right and that these horrible older fans are all racists.

Initiate the Final Solution...

Quote from: Spinachcat;1140028This is exactly why stormtroopers wear helmets.

Gamers feel great killing almost-human monsters, but there's a fraction who aren't as good and easy with killing human opponents. It's one of the reasons humanocentric games and settings have a smaller fanbase. In Traveller and Cyberpunk, you mostly pop fellow humans and those games have a less of a following than Shadowrun where you pop a mix of humans & monsters.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1140061I'm calling for engagement with non-woke publishers.

Quote from: Wulfhelm;1139961Well, playing is not really issue here, is it? Buying is. Buying means, essentially, economically and morally supporting a person or company whose actions you find reprehensible. And while I have a very high level of tolerance before I even consider such questions, your latter example would certainly beyond that level of tolerance.

Quote from: SpinachatGamers feel great killing almost-human monsters, but there's a fraction who aren't as good and easy with killing human opponents.

Quote from: VisionStormI don't think that's really the case. I just think that people tend to be more attracted to the fantasy stuff and having the option to play non-humans, than dealing with gritty realism or hard sci-fi.

Quote from: VisionStormPeople usually just want mindless heroics in games, not losing limbs left and right, or delving into the human condition and the depressing dark future that awaits us (and we're already kinda living).

Quote from: Mistwell;1139509...I love how guys like you think you're better than social justice warriors to despise. You're just the other side of the same coin, moralizing to others to make sacrifices for your cause to signal to like-minded people that you're in good standing with your bubble community of fanatics.

Quote from: 1989;1139491...Not like it will make a difference, but it's the principle.  Spend your dollars elsewhere, with publishers who are not bowing down to politics.

Quote from: Morblot;1140134I, for one, will certainly not be buying anything from WotC (or Paizo for that matter) until they dial back the madness. Granted, it's fairly easy for me to say since I don't even like 5e (or PF 2e)... but -

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1140137"Henceforth, I am not going to buy things I dislike!"

The world will applaud your strong stance on this issue. Stunning and brave.

Quote from: Morblot;1140139I though my generation was supposed to be the one with the short attention span ;) You did read the part about not buying the PDFs either? I do like TSR and 3.X stuff.

Quote from: Morblot;1140148I know that whatever I do or don't do doesn't matter to them, but it matters to me.

Quote from: Morblot;1140148I know that whatever I do or don't do doesn't matter to them, but it matters to me.

Quote from: Morblot;1140148No.

I know that whatever I do or don't do doesn't matter to them, but it matters to me.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139918Come on, the One Ring is nowhere near as useful as a Zombie Baby.

And having a Zombie Baby is hardly corrupting at all.

Quote from: JeffB;1138835This is only the beginning.

Quote from: Zalman;1140225For sure. Look who's hiring a new Senior Manager (https://boards.greenhouse.io/wizardsofthecoast/jobs/4791760002?gh_src=266096a72us) for just such endeavors! Whoever they put in that position is going to want/have to justify their fat salary.

Quote from: Zalman;1140225For sure. Look who's hiring a new Senior Manager (https://boards.greenhouse.io/wizardsofthecoast/jobs/4791760002?gh_src=266096a72us) for just such endeavors! Whoever they put in that position is going to want/have to justify their fat salary.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1140059Godwin aside, if WOTC can successfully spin it like that, then nothing we do will make a difference. It's time to leave the Farm. (https://youtu.be/52waCfwodp0)

Quote from: Brad;1140233"Are you an experienced Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Leader (DE&I) who seeks to build fun, innovative organizations, where people can come to work and bring their whole selves?"

This whole thing is either an elaborate joke or civilization needs a hard reset.

Quote from: Zalman;1140225For sure. Look who's hiring a new Senior Manager (https://boards.greenhouse.io/wizardsofthecoast/jobs/4791760002?gh_src=266096a72us) for just such endeavors! Whoever they put in that position is going to want/have to justify their fat salary.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1140400Nice, this will only accelerate their destruction. Just you wait till all the poundemetoo accusations start flying, the racism/sexism/etc accusations, etc.

They will be so busy trying to be (and produce) the wokest of them all that their products will go to shit even faster.

The King is dead
Long Live The OSR!

Quote from: Mercurius;1140402D&D is more popular than ever.

Quote from: Mercurius;1140402LOL. Do you really think any of this will significantly impact WotC's ongoing success? D&D is more popular than ever. Maybe a blip, but that's all. The vast majority of the tens of millions of D&D players don't care about any of this and just want to roll dice.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1140410Yep, it won't kill them because droves of players saw that and decided to never play it again. It will kill them because they will start hiring because of wokeness and firing because of false allegations. Which will in turn make them unable to produce good material.

And the purity spiral has no bottom, it will keep on going until the company is destroyed.

Quote from: Mercurius;1140418I too am concerned with this, but evidently have more hope that there will be a re-balancing, and that the "purity spiral" will be checked by more and more voices who cherish creative freedom. The Harper's open letter is somewhat promising.

The next few years could be interesting and potentially rough, though. My guess is that WotC will publish revised core rulebooks in 2024 for the 50th anniversary, and spend the next few years trying out stuff to see how the community responds. Yes, most of it will be newish "woke versions" of old ideas, but I'm also guessing (hoping) that they won't go too overboard. The smart way forward for WotC would be to largely ignore extremists on either side of the spectrum, either those who want everything remade in a "woke' utopia (dystopia) or those clutching onto their OD&D and AD&D books with their cold, dead hands. The vast majority of players are somewhere in-between those extremes, despite what it looks like on certain online forums.

Quote from: Mercurius;1140402LOL. Do you really think any of this will significantly impact WotC's ongoing success? D&D is more popular than ever. Maybe a blip, but that's all. The vast majority of the tens of millions of D&D players don't care about any of this and just want to roll dice.

Quote from: Mercurius;1140418Yes, most of it will be newish "woke versions" of old ideas, but I'm also guessing (hoping) that they won't go too overboard.

The smart way forward for WotC would be to largely ignore extremists on either side of the spectrum, either those who want everything remade in a "woke' utopia (dystopia) or those clutching onto their OD&D and AD&D books with their cold, dead hands. The vast majority of players are somewhere in-between those extremes, despite what it looks like on certain online forums.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1140520Just found my old copy of Oriental Adventures! It was stashed away in another room. All busted up from age, though, with the side binding coming off at the bottom and the edges all worn out.

Also found my copy of Al-Qadim Arabian Adventures, which I thought I never got. I left it stored inside my City of Delights boxed set, so it's in much better condition. Can't say the same about the boxed set. Still, precious gems that will never see print again in our dystopian era.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1140525Please let us know when they come for your old rulebooks.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1140520Just found my old copy of Oriental Adventures! It was stashed away in another room. All busted up from age, though, with the side binding coming off at the bottom and the edges all worn out.

Quote from: Dropkicker;1141694Politics aside, is OA any good?

Quote from: LiferGamer;1141696The new classes are very cool - I especially like the spellcasters, you've got flavorful spells, monsters, and a decent toolkit to put a (mostly japanese)asian veneer on your OD&D game; the honor rules are a little clunky and odd when it comes to a group working together...

Overall, I found it good except for 'Zebs' trash-talk of european armies in the forward.  ;)

Quote from: Dropkicker;1141694Politics aside, is OA any good?

Quote from: Omega;1141779To me it feels instead like mostly China with some Japan sprinkled in there.

Quote from: Dropkicker;1141694Politics aside, is OA any good?

Quote from: HappyDaze;1141808Anybody have video to share of these "they" coming for their rulebooks? I want to see what defenses I need to prepare.

Quote from: LiferGamer;1141819Here you go smartass, it'll save you asking a third time: Link (https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FIjnqR_gOXh4%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DIjnqR_gOXh4&tbnid=gBzrLy0qI6NkuM&vet=1&docid=V1GUla6wpILI9M&w=1280&h=720&q=-site%3Apinterest.com%20book%20burning%20scene&source=sh%2Fx%2Fim)

Quote from: HappyDaze;1141808Anybody have video to share of these "they" coming for their rulebooks? I want to see what defenses I need to prepare.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1141808Anybody have video to share of these "they" coming for their rulebooks? I want to see what defenses I need to prepare.

Quote from: sharps54;1141885I posted it last page, they are changing the wording of PDFs without any footnotes or version number changes. So if you buy the PDF of Tunnels & Trolls 1st edition you will never know by reading it that the spell name 'Obey Me' didn't exist until July of 2020.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1141886So they are not coming after *my* (or anyone else's) old books; they are changing what you can pick up through them going forward.

Quote from: sharps54;1141885I posted it last page, they are changing the wording of PDFs without any footnotes or version number changes. So if you buy the PDF of Tunnels & Trolls 1st edition you will never know by reading it that the spell name 'Obey Me' didn't exist until July of 2020.

Quote from: SHARK;1141785Greetings!

Honestly, I became very bored with America's fetishizing and obsession with Japan--the Samurai, the Giesha, the Ninja--all of that, a long time ago. I think Mongolia, Ancient China, Ancient India, and South-East Asia are far more interesting.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: sharps54;1141885I posted it last page, they are changing the wording of PDFs without any footnotes or version number changes. So if you buy the PDF of Tunnels & Trolls 1st edition you will never know by reading it that the spell name 'Obey Me' didn't exist until July of 2020.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1141886So they are not coming after *my* (or anyone else's) old books; they are changing what you can pick up through them going forward.

Quote from: sharps54;1141885I posted it last page, they are changing the wording of PDFs without any footnotes or version number changes. So if you buy the PDF of Tunnels & Trolls 1st edition you will never know by reading it that the spell name 'Obey Me' didn't exist until July of 2020.

Quote from: LiferGamer;1141696The new classes are very cool - I especially like the spellcasters, you've got flavorful spells, monsters, and a decent toolkit to put a (mostly japanese)asian veneer on your OD&D game; the honor rules are a little clunky and odd when it comes to a group working together...

Overall, I found it good except for 'Zebs' trash-talk of european armies in the forward.  ;)

Quote from: HappyDaze;1141808Anybody have video to share of these "they" coming for their rulebooks? I want to see what defenses I need to prepare.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1142097At first they came for modern books but I didn't care because I didn't use modern books.
Then they came for old book PDFs but I didn't care because I didn't use their PDFs.
Then they-

We really need to do this again?

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1142098Then they tried to come for my books, and I shot them all and buried them under my flowerbeds and vegetable gardens.

See how nicely the flowers are growing this year?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1142097At first they came for modern books but I didn't care because I didn't use modern books.
Then they came for old book PDFs but I didn't care because I didn't use their PDFs.
Then they-

We really need to do this again?

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142103I still do not accept that they will be able to take/alter what's already in your possession unless you let them do so. You may not be able to (legally) acquire an unaltered replacement electronic product, but secondhand/used physical copies are beyond their reach unless their owner allows otherwise (and that's a choice).

Quote from: Brad;1142117Yes, exactly. Never in the history of time has any entity ever burned any books.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142121Godwin much?

Quote from: Brad;1142126https://youtu.be/E8Alsz_bkeA?t=18

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142103I still do not accept that they will be able to take/alter what's already in your possession unless you let them do so. You may not be able to (legally) acquire an unaltered replacement electronic product, but secondhand/used physical copies are beyond their reach unless their owner allows otherwise (and that's a choice).

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142135What's that? Oh... Yep. More fiction.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1142189All I know is this Lo Pan character comes outta thin air...

Edit: I'm sure they'd literally come for your old D&D books if they could. But I think we're a ways off from that yet. They've got to get the guns first.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142121Godwin much?

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142121Godwin much?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1142211Cancel culture will get worse, not better. They don't need to take your books. They just need you to fear for your job if you ever talk about those Nazi heirlooms you got stashed in the cellar.

Quote from: Brad;1142145What an exceptional reply. I appreciate it!

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1142256Just an FYI, I just got those Premium POD versions of the D&D 1e PH, DMG, MM, UA delivered.
They really look awesome (the Premium was worth it) and NO new disclaimers or warnings added.
They look true to the originals from cursory check.
Very happy about that.
Who knows for how long but if you're looking to stock up before WOtC gets pressured to do more than just a disclaimer on the website, it's all good.

(edit)  Here's a pic of them.  They're full size prints.  I have a tissue box and a pint glass for scale.  Heh
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4726[/ATTACH]

Quote from: RandyB;1142268I got mine today, too, less UA. Haven't given them a close check yet.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142270Lookout! The messages fingerpainted in CS nutter-butter say that THEY will be there any minute now to take your books away...

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142270Lookout! The messages fingerpainted in CS nutter-butter say that THEY will be there any minute now to take your books away...

Seriously though, those look great.

Quote from: Brad;1142280Someone is obsessed...

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1142284Candid shot of the DriveThru crew in action doing quality control:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]4729[/ATTACH]

To be more serious, I'm more worried about the eventual social-panning of certain books than some scene from Fahrenheit 451.

For me, it's not so much having possession of the books but the social mis-hype machine skewing things so people judge the merit of the material before they even crack open the book.  No readers, no players.  Slowly, I feel a lot of great older work will just fall by the wayside as time goes on.  Some might take the time to enjoy it but it won't be the same as growing up with the stuff.

Possibly for younger players, it may be more difficult to dismiss the warnings as some bright light is going to parrot the disclaimer nonsense, for no other reason than they were told, leaving an awkward scenario when the intention was just to have a nice, friendly game.  Maybe I'm wrong, at least, I hope so.

One should not have to excuse the material and justify it just to play the game just because some spineless company decides it is so.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142285With the sheer inanity of the hyperbole that gets flung around? Perhaps. But if everyone is going to try to take seriously what THEY are (NOT) going to do, I might as well poke that shit with a stick. Besides Brad, you love being offensive yourself, so just relax and let it happen like the little bitch you really are.

For those that don't get it, NO ONE is coming for your old books. Nobody cares about what you already own. However, if you are thinking of buying something that the asshat brigade finds objectionable, you might want to do so before it gets woke-washed.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142287Something old already has an uphill battle against new things when talking about new/young players. It's fairly natural for products to fade except among their "old guard" players.

However, if it gets negative attention--especially of the "parental advisory" type--then it might actually be more appealing the edgy kids. At least, it used to be that way.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142285For those that don't get it, NO ONE is coming for your old books. Nobody cares about what you already own. However, if you are thinking of buying something that the asshat brigade finds objectionable, you might want to do so before it gets woke-washed.

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1142284I'm more worried about the eventual social-panning of certain books than some scene from Fahrenheit 451.

Quote from: 451"Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic-books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God."

Quote from: BradburyThere is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1142303Demonstrably bullshit.

They got WOTC to put the scarlett letter on all their old product. And if all those old games are for racist white supremacists, why would you want to keep them around?

Get how that works now? The brownshits don't have to come to your house. You will willingly give over your books eventually. It's only a matter of time, Winston.

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1142297It's funny as in the last few months, I've seen more D&D 1e material being talked about on YT and other forums and seems to be gaining traction as a topic.  It's like the younger players are boring of the OD&D and Basic stuff and the whole "simple rules" thing and want to feel the confusion and pain of figuring out 1e.  Holds some strange fascination for them.

Either that or the usual YT RPG types have run out of things to say on the former material.  Maybe that fascination with the 'edgy' thing is happening and I'm just too clueless to see it.  Heh

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142317Demonstrably? OK fucktard, show me the demonstration, because otherwise you're just full of shit.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1142320I just did.
WOTC has branded all their old product as "problematic". Did you not get the memo? WOTC has agreed that any product pre-5th edition is in that category, including existing copies out in the wild.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142321Strange, none of my books have any new special warnings attached. No signs of they breaking in and putting such labels on my books. You are full of shit.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142285For those that don't get it, NO ONE is coming for your old books. Nobody cares about what you already own. However, if you are thinking of buying something that the asshat brigade finds objectionable, you might want to do so before it gets woke-washed.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142321Strange, none of my books have any new special warnings attached. No signs of they breaking in and putting such labels on my books. You are full of shit.

Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1142324I believe his line of reasoning is along the following lines:
Since it is not acknowledged that those books are "problematic" and you admit to owning them is proof you are in fact a white supremacist. They might now come to take the books from you if you have them they will use it against you down the road, as such you will get rid of them to avoid being attacked. This is not really any different then if they just came to take the books away from you.

Quote from: lordmalachdrim;1142324I believe his line of reasoning is along the following lines:
Since it is not acknowledged that those books are "problematic" and you admit to owning them is proof you are in fact a white supremacist. They might now come to take the books from you if you have them they will use it against you down the road, as such you will get rid of them to avoid being attacked. This is not really any different then if they just came to take the books away from you.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1142326Pretty much. I think the labeling concessions were actually more valuable in the long run than if online shops had simply pulled OA. I don't think someone is going to come around collecting problematic material. I think people are going to be bullied into giving them up. A few holdouts will tell them to piss off, but a lot of people will comply out of the hope that the woke mob won't have a reason to go after them.

Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies;1142256Just an FYI, I just got those Premium POD versions of the D&D 1e PH, DMG, MM, UA delivered.
They really look awesome (the Premium was worth it) and NO new disclaimers or warnings added.
They look true to the originals from cursory check.
Very happy about that.
Who knows for how long but if you're looking to stock up before WOtC gets pressured to do more than just a disclaimer on the website, it's all good.

(edit)  Here's a pic of them.  They're full size prints.  I have a tissue box and a pint glass for scale.  Heh
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Quote from: RandyB;1142268I got mine today, too, less UA. Haven't given them a close check yet.

Quote from: Brad;1142328"Hey guys, got triggggggered today because our DM showed up with an old copy of Oriental Adventures (I feel dirty even typing that out). I've heard that anyone who still owns a copy of this problematic book is just signaling their white supremacist views. I thought the DM was cool, but it looks like I'm going to have to drop out of the campaign. What else should I do? Report him for possibly being in the KKK?"

Quote from: Razor 007;1142340I own the Core 3 books, but not UA.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142341My parents have a copy of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses on their bookshelf, and it's been there over 30 years. They've never had any fear that they were coming, even when Muslim guests have been over. I think everyone with older D&D books is quite safe and the hyperbole in this thread is just absurd. But, nutters will be nutters.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1142341My parents have a copy of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses on their bookshelf, and it's been there over 30 years. They've never had any fear that they were coming, even when Muslim guests have been over. I think everyone with older D&D books is quite safe and the hyperbole in this thread is just absurd. But, nutters will be nutters.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1142333Yeah, I got these a bonus from WoTC for my Consulting work when they first came out.

Quote from: RandyB;1142350I opted not to get UA. I don't have a massive hate-on for it. I don't have enough interest in it to buy a copy.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1142354I agree. No one has shown up at your parents house to confiscate their Satanic Verses, therefore there's zero problem with Salman Rushdie getting death threats and having to live under police protection after a fatwa was declared on him, or his book being banned in several Muslim countries. After all, your parents still have their book so who gives a fuck about actual banning and credible death threats having a man run for his life for years. There's nothing to discuss there, cuz one couple living comfortably in the Western World still have their book, so WTF is the fuss all about, amirite?

And that's what your furious beating at this strawman for the past dozen or so pages has been about right? Pretending that there is no problem because something literally no has claimed has happened hasn't actually happened so far. And before you bring up the thread title, look up the meaning of the phrase "figure of speech" then bring me a quote from someone claiming in all earnest that their books were literally confiscated.

Otherwise carry on throwing a public tantrum cuz not enough people in this site buy into the scamdemic so you're trying to burn bridges as a result. :p