Whoo boy is this one a mess. A friend recently pointed this out to me from a Reddit post they saw.

https://www.rascal.news/hack-the-orcs-loot-the-tomb-and-take-the-land/

QuoteEven so, when I started to create my characters, it wasn't the brash (white) warriors who appealed to me, or the dignified (white) princelings seeking to regain their thrones, or the noble (white) paladins charging down the dragons to rescue the swooning (white) maidens in distress. These weren't characters who reflected where we lived or where we came from. I struggled with shame about my little mountain town, far from what I envisioned as the center of culture, art, and intellectual achievement, but I loved the place, too; and so, to manage the cognitive dissonance, I began imagining myself in worlds of magic and mystery where difference was valued, not despised, where the game's explicit insistence on the dungeon master's (DM's) ultimate authority as storyteller made it possible to ignore the parts that wounded and enhance those that empowered, no matter what the canonical rule books might otherwise state. The DM was the ultimate creator of worlds through story, and that was something I understood at a visceral level.

So another 50th Anniversary of D&D book thats a cover for some woke screed.

Back in junior high I had a friend who's parents bought him just about everything for D&D.  Then he went to Christian school, the first year he was fine, the next he was going through the books looking for "satanic" content and then tore up what was probably $1000 in books in 1983.  This article is the first time I've seen such ridiculous stretching matched and I used to be a regular on rpg.net.

Gygax's efforts to use available figures to represent fantasy races was racist?  What about his use of vikings to represent Fire Giants and Frost Giants does that represent deep seated hatred for Scandinavians?  Dwarves and Elves and Halflings were weaker than Humans?  Because they have level limits but are better for the only levels you ever actually play from first level forward?

QuoteAnd soon the Tolkienesque template of D&D began to chafe, as did the varied inheritors of Tolkien's literary imaginings. (The other great influence on D&D's world-building, Robert E. Howard, especially his Conan works, held no appeal for me whatsoever, as there was no beauty, no grace, no romance—just blood, brutality, butchery, and overt racism.) As much as I loved Middle-earth, it was still a world where lordship was borne in the blood, where inheriting country gentry were served faithfully by loving and dutiful servants, of the uncertain triumph of "Western civilization" over the dark and fallen peoples who stood against it. And while Tolkien's orcs and their filmic, gaming, and media iterations have been shaped by and expanded on savagist anti-Black and anti-Asian stereotypes, they're also informed by stereotypical ideas about Indigenous primitivism (as are his Drúedain, the reclusive Woses who aid the Rohirrim on their way to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields).

I'm convinced this stupid motherfucker has never read The Lord of the Rings, let alone any other part of Tolkien's legendarium to spout such dishonest pseudo-intellectual bullshit. Never mind the fact he sounds like someone that probably bullied real D&D players in high school and only 'saw the light' when he figured out he could grift.

Makes me think of someone that buys X so he can talk about himself.

As stupid as it was, I at least understood the logic behind 'orcs are black people'. How in the actual hell are Drow racist stereotypes? I don't recall ever hearing any stereotypes about black American's being led by women or worshipping spiders. Love how he blatantly ignores Eilistraee, granted wizards has been trying to erase her for years so I suppose that's par for the course.

QuoteForgotten Realms was explicitly based on the civilized-versus-savage binary and leaned in hard on racial essentialism in its sadistic black-skinned drow led by vicious matriarchs and their terrible spider goddess, firmly melding anti-Blackness with misogyny, a once-civilized people gone feral under the debased rule of women. Ravenloft had its pseudo-Roma Vistani, complete with the worst "gypsy" stereotypes of criminality and charlatanism. And where to begin with the tribal cannibals that were the Dark Sun halflings?

This just reads as 'never have bad guys or interesting civilizations ever'.

I'm not reading any of that.

So...basically the author of this piece of garbage is a woke POS, who "Feels" guilty about his "white privilege", and is spouting NPC talking points so he can be seen as an "ally" to the Woke Mafia.

Got it.

Greetings!

I read the entire article. I find it interesting how this clown sounds *exactly* like all the other Woke morons, wallowing in being eternal victims, while at the same time exalting themselves, their personal experience, their family, and their heritage over everyone else, most importantly normal White people.

Keep crying, bitch. You got fucking conquered. You, and your entire people got conquered because you were fucking weak.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Shalashashka on May 16, 2024, 08:31:04 AMAs stupid as it was, I at least understood the logic behind 'orcs are black people'.

What "logic"?

There is no justification except on the minds of raving lunatics.

Quote from: Omega on May 16, 2024, 11:58:54 AMWhat "logic"?

There is no justification except on the minds of raving lunatics.

Considering there are actual blacks mentioned peripherally in Tolkien's lore, it makes the whole "orcs are black" argument even dumber than it sounds on its face.

This article is an excellent reminder of Why We Fight.  It's bad enough when freaks like this take over a hobby -- what if they take over the world?

Unfounded assumptions, personal anecdotes probably embellished, straw men. It's a cheap and lazy hit piece.

These people aren't happy until the things that make D&D fun have been destroyed and replaced with their personal ideologies.
And WOTC agrees with them.

"People who want to destroy civilization identify with fantasy destroyers of civilization." News at 11.

I'm in Canada and whenever the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation does a puff piece on geek culture be it comics, cosplay, or D&D  there's always this smug, denigrating, tone of superiority.

I think part of the problem is that many of these writers and commentators are ashamed that they like and play D&D and have to tear it down to show they are really grown up adults with adult attitudes and understanding.

There's also this level of ignorance where they haven't read every GM's advice section in every rpg since Tunnels and Trolls where they all have different take on race and alignment.  Never mind the letter columns in Dragon and every other magazine right down to the photocopied fanzines coming out of junior high libraries.

Gamers have always been aware of these issues and there has always been a great dare I say diversity in the opinions and attitudes.  They're not just irrational they're irrational and uninformed on the issue.