(Side note: tenbones, I think you misread "Rokugan" for "Talislanta" in my post. I never mentioned Talislanta, and you never mention Rokugan.)
Nope you read me correctly. I just meant to say they're all in the same boat. Though Rokugan definitely had it's moment to shine - it faded into it's niche corner of acknowledged kickass non-Eurocentric settings that are no longer supported by anyone but us GM's that run that material.
I was speaking for myself, and reacting to what you said about non-European settings. If you want to discuss what modern-day SJWs want, I'd want something more specific to talk about. I ran into this recently when discussing with Pundit, and I even bought a copy of Candlekeep Mysteries at Pacificon earlier this month to get an idea about what the controversy was. In the previous thread, he said,
The wheelchair is in Candlekeep, and EVERY dungeon for official D&D from Candlekeep onwards has been wheelchair-accessible. Also, every D&D product from candlekeep onward has featured the wheelchair in art.
However, when I bought Candlekeep Mysteries, I found no wheelchairs of any sort in it, and the dungeons were not wheelchair-accessible. This makes me skeptical of claims. I'm happy to discuss specific authors or products, but discussing what an abstract group of unnamed people thinks isn't helpful in my opinion.
Yep. I hear you on that too. I don't profess to know if it's in the official books. I will not purchase any WotC product. But it's possible that you got an early printing? I dunno.
My question is WHY is this even a topic of discussion in a game about quasi-medieval European fantasy? So you go first: what do you think SJW's want in D&D and tell me at whose expense?
Because there most certainly IS an expense. I'm one of them. Just like I don't need Banjo-Representation in my favorite metal-bands, I don't need Fruit-Loop representation on my plate of steak, asparagus and potato, or on my sushi plate. The argument is always "what harm is it?" No one is saying not to make LGBT, Black supremacy, Asian supremacy games if that's what you want. But the established premise of D&D has never been those things.
This preponderance of sneaking those things in there free of context seems 1) either disingenuous to the purpose of creating them (i.e. token virtue-signaling to the alleged aggrieved 2) half-ass attempts at actual genuine design.
To WotC I say - shit or get off the pot. Create a Blue Rose on Roids setting and go wild. Don't sneak in ingredients to established settings that have no well crafted contextual reality to be there.
The reality is people want to play what they're comfortable with. The unspoken reality is that WotC wants everyone to believe that the types of western fantasy that we've been consuming for more than a century in terms of fiction is the product of white racists and they want to condition everyone to get used to their weird non-contextual political daydream dressed in fantasy. This is also true of other forms of consumer entertainment.
Deep down they detest (or at minimum look down on) the very people they say they're giving representation to. Otherwise white privilege would not exist and WotC would be run by LGBT "People of Color". Otherwise why would we poor "people of color" need white leftists who control the wheel at WotC to give us representation they say we need?
I'd love to see Jeremy Crawford give his job to me, an oppressed Asian man under his white-colonial yoke. My very genes scream with the horrors of slavery placed upon my ancestors by the Spaniards he resembles in some myopic fashion. Why is Jeremy continuing this oppression? Why won't he step down? I would usher in the most glorious era of D&D since St. Gygax lightbulb blew out in his outhouse on the cold winter's evening in Lake Geneva and he fell into the hole where his neighbor Timmy's pet iguana, Butch, used to hide out in. (the secret origin of Dungeon's and Dragons!)
Greetings!
*Laughing* Fucking hilarious, brother!
You know, everything you said is spot-on. I have always loved TALISLANTA!
But sadly, as a game world and commercial product, it has been consistently rejected, and has been a commercial failure. Yes, there is a vocal minority of gamers that wax poetic about wanting and enjoying non-European centric game worlds. In general, I myself appreciate such cultural, artistic, and historical variety. East Asia, Central Asia, South-East Asia, India, Africa, the Middle East, Central America, and South America--each has enormous hstory and dozens of various cultures, mini-traditions, lore, and more that can contribute to an awesome and interesting game campaign. Not to mention, of course, various mythologies, vast animal groups, clothing, weapons, and FOOD! It's all fucking awesome.
Despite that, there is either only a very small gamer minority--or through polls and surveys, most of the gaming public are schizophrenic and just lying--that are genuinely interested in such game worlds.
The vast majority want a quasi-Tolkienized Western Europe. Again, and again, and again. There can never be enough iterations on the traditions, myths, and general scope of such a stylized Western European foundation for a game world. That's the simple, brutal truth. WESTERN EUROPEAN--not South American, not Middle Eastern, not African, and not Asian. WESTERN EUROPEAN.
Talislanta is even more off the charts by dialing the races and cultures up to 11, with everyone being non-human and rainbow coloured. Talislanta is I'd say the most original, diverse game world ever produced. Certainly in the Top 5 of such original game words produced. And yet, it has always been obscure, and remains obscure. I wish the market was different, for Talislanta, and other cultural/Historical game worlds, as mentioned previously, but it isn't, and such market realities and preferences aren't likely to ever change.
Even gamers in Asia and Mexico want WESTERN EUROPEAN based worlds--not stuff created from their own native lands and culture. So, we get what we get. I have simply resolved that different cultural and historically-based settings have to be developed, introduced, and used by myself, as well as other individual DM's. Such material is a niche within a niche, right?
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK