The only thing that 3e did was started using the word “she” instead of “him” in it’s texts. It was a way to try break the gender divide and attract more females into the game. It bugged me when they did that switch. From a marketing point, they wanted a new audience instead of old aging fat men to play the game. There was not too much else they changed in my honest opinion that would invoke SJW….
I disagree.
Like I said; Critical Theory based "inclusive" politics were actively being injected in 3e D&D well before most people knew what an SJW was.
My Evidence:
Johnathan Tweet: 3e-and-the-feel-of-D&D
https://www.enworld.org/threads/3e-and-the-feel-of-d-d.667269/
Tweet openly talks about excising any references of or to real-world mythology when worldbuilding for official 3e D&D.
Making the game entirely self-referential.
Effectively doing a “Year Zero” of D&D lore…
Select quotes:
“…one part of the process I enjoyed was describing the world of D&D in its own terms, rather than referring to real-world history and mythology. When writing roleplaying games, I enjoy helping the player get immersed in the setting, and I always found these references to the real world to be distractions."
...
"…by the time we were working on 3rd Ed, D&D had had such a big impact on fantasy that we basically used D&D as its own source."
…
"We were fortunate that by 2000 D&D had such a strong legacy that it could stand on its own without reference to Earth history or mythology.”
Johnathan Tweet: Diversity-in-D&D-third-edition
https://www.enworld.org/threads/diversity-in-d-d-third-edition.668462/
Tweet openly discusses pushing a “diversity and inclusion” agenda for 3e.
Select quotes:
“One way we diverged from the D&D heritage, however, was by making the game art more inclusive.”
…
“Luckily for us, Wizards of the Coast had an established culture of egalitarianism, and we were able to update the characters depicted in the game to better reflect contemporary sensibilities.”
…
“By the time I was working on 3E, I had been dealing with the pronoun issue for ten years.”
Notice how pissed he gets when the WOTC Marketing team of the time insisted that they throw their biggest sales demographic a bone…
“…the marketing team added Regdar, a male fighter, to the mix of iconic characters. We designers weren’t thrilled, and as the one who had drawn up the iconic characters I was a little chapped.”
And to his utter horror:
“… Regdar proved popular, and if the marketing team was looking for an attractive character to publicize, they got one.”
The White male fighter hate was strong with the 3e design team:
Monte Cook: Originally Posted by Monte Cook on his now defunct livejournal blog.
https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=16418
Select quotes:
“When I worked at TSR, there was always basically a truism in cover art--the central figure had to be a white male. Most of us actually helping to create the cover art, either by conceiving it or actually creating it, hated that kind of outlook, …”
…
“…when D&D was bought by WotC and we started working on 3E, we really felt that this was a time when we could break this mold. …”
…
“It was a thumb to the nose of the old TSR requirement.”
…
“At least that was our intention.”
…
“…to the credit of a number of people--artists, art directors, designers and editors alike--our disdain for Regdar made its way into a lot of art. If you look closely, Regdar is getting thrashed on most of the early pieces he shows up in. (Look for his ignominious fate on the original DM's Screen, for example.) …”
James Jacobs: ( D&D writer, and current Creative Director for the Pathfinder Adventure Paths.)
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2iha2?Monte-Cook-on-Gender-and-Race-in-DD-Art
This shit just speaks for itself...
Select quote:
“Killing off Captain Whitebread is indeed a time-honored tradition in WotC books. I've written my fair share of art orders for those books, and have made sure to have Regdar get blasted or ruined or murdered a few times myself (such as at the end of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk). It's a fun little semi-secret D&D tradition!”
WOTC D&D has hated its core sales demographic long before they eagerly bought their first copies of the 3e PHB.
And they have been paying WOTC to hate on them ever since.
Greetings!
Holy fuck, my friend! That's some outstanding work you have provided here! I've always known for many years that the "creative types" at WOTC were largely a bunch of cultural degenerates. Reading through the standard books at the time, you could see little glimpses of their counter-cultural myopia and hatred. The whole "Killing the Minotaur" article published from way back in the early 3E era provided additional confirmation of the growing leftist, anarchist, depraved cesspool that everyone at WOTC were becoming--and seeking to recruit more like-minded degenerates.
Your quotes here though, geesus. Very eye-opening, I confess. And sad, Jaeger. How fucking pathetic that all of these mostly middle-class professionals, all at least theoretically "educated"--and all mostly white men--are so full of self-loathing and hatred for everything that is white, traditional, and conservative. They are so fucking desperate to be accepted...by somebody...that they lift on high the constant litany of women this, minority that--regardless of how ahistorical, jarring, unrealistic, or inappropriate doing so obviously is, well beyond any kind of reasonably balanced and healthy perspective on all of it, just so they can giggle together like a bunch of shit-covered little boys, gathered around to stomp on someone they have hated forever. And these mostly white men, middle-class, educated professionals, are not in grade school, burdened by the many ignorant attitudes of such an immature age--they are all adults.
Their whole attitude seems so juvenile, so full of self-loathing, and a pathetic shrieking exclamation of "PICK ME! PICK ME!"--while they go about condescendingly and smugly disparaging (and slipping in their little needles) the vast majority of the audience that has supported this hobby for decades since the beginning.
So sad, Jaeger.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Looking back at the history of TSR and WOTC, you can see where the problems with degeneracy and wokeness started. It's when guys like Tweet and Cook were brought on to design games and create content. There were two distinct eras at play here
1. The Edgy (in a punk rock, lefty kind of way), juvenile stage, in which D&D became self-referential (see above) and started to become video-gamey.
A good example is the "Book of Vile Darkness" written by Cook. A tome that features references to necrophilia, incest, killing children, and other wonderful stuff. It even has pictures of topless women missing breasts, and a demonic girl pushing up against her well-endowed arch-devil father. Tracy Hickman denounced it as cheap trash, and rightfully so.
Meanwhile, "diversity" was injected into the game in a clumsy way, and the quality of he writing went to complete shit. The 3rd edition rules were a complete mess with all the feats breaking the game and making DMing difficult. There were volumes of unnecessary rules, which amounted to a cash grab.
And guys like Skip Williams, who was a minor assistant and editor in the 80s and 90s, became principal designers and authors --only his stuff was boring, uninspired, and legalistic.
2. When D&D becomes Disney
The second era involved making the game suitable for mass consumption, taking out any objectionable content, making it even more self-referential (no real-world historical elements), and completely woke. A game that can literally be sold in mainland China without making the CCP angry.
Guys like R.A. Salvatore fit right in, with his cheesy tie-in material featuring "good" Drow. And now we see races being done away with (racist!), and "essentialism" regarding evil creatures abolished.
--
In a nutshell, there has been a decline in quality all around, mixed with greater injection of woke politics into the game. Doesn't mean the game is terrible, or that you can't have fun playing it, but it isn't what it was (not to sound like grognard, but this is the truth). The intended audience is a 16-year old upper-middle-class white girl living in Boston at this point.