DnD addresses racism.

[Satinavian]

What gets really confusing is that the races seem to be seperate species and yet they can make viable hybird offspring. If they're different species its not like comparing you to another human with a slight difference in genetics that manifests as a skin colour, which is about as important as hair colour really. It's more like If neanderthals still walked the earth, would it be racist to acknowledge the actual differences between them and us that are more than skin colour?

Possibly. But we don't have Neanderthals anymore. We only have minimal differences between living humans that vanish in individual differences and can't be properly measured. So racism makes no sense. If we ever get genetic engeneering and variant humans going we might reconsider but as of now racism is just wrong.


As for D&D, there are not only half-elfs and half-orc, but also half-giants, half-vampires, half-ogres, half-dragons, half-celestials, half-fay and half-elementals. I would not be surprised if i can dig out half-skelletons and half-golems somewhere. The ability to create offspring is meaningless for categorisation in D&D. It never was a particularly serious game.

 

[09philj]

What gets really confusing is that the races seem to be seperate species and yet they can make viable hybird offspring. If they're different species its not like comparing you to another human with a slight difference in genetics that manifests as a skin colour, which is about as important as hair colour really. It's more like If neanderthals still walked the earth, would it be racist to acknowledge the actual differences between them and us that are more than skin colour?

A wizard did it.

 

[CriticalGaming]

A wizard did it.

Yeah man, I feel like people put too much stock on trying to make a world of magic and monsters believable.

At the end of the day it's a game, and the finer logical details are simply just not that important.

 

[Satinavian]

Yeah man, I feel like people put too much stock on trying to make a world of magic and monsters believable.

At the end of the day it's a game, and the finer logical details are simply just not that important.

There are a lot of people for whom immersion and thus versimilitude is the most important thing for RPG.

It is just that D&D and its various settings are not particularly good at it because of too much historical baggage, wargaming roots and inventors that were not particularly interested in this aspect.

 

[CriticalGaming]

There are a lot of people for whom immersion and thus versimilitude is the most important thing for RPG.

It is just that D&D and its various settings are not particularly good at it because of too much historical baggage, wargaming roots and inventors that were not particularly interested in this aspect.

If immersion is that important to people, there are other games that provide that aspect. And if such trivial questions like "how are races interbreeding" that important to paint your picture of the world, I think you just need to jerk off before you come to my D&D sessions horny.

 

[Dreiko]

Apparently they just removed negative racial ability score modifiers because of the whole orc = black folks ordeal.

Hurray for orc wizards?

 

[CriticalGaming]

Apparently they just removed negative racial ability score modifiers because of the whole orc = black folks ordeal.

Hurray for orc wizards?

I saw that. Can we go back to using the hard "R" in orc now? Or is that still the same and saying the n-word?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Good. Negative stats are bullshit. More flexibility in character creation is a good thing

 

[Hawki]

I saw that. Can we go back to using the hard "R" in orc now? Or is that still the same and saying the n-word?

I insist that you use the term ork. Orc is offensive, and can only be used by fellow orcs..sorry, orks. Forgive my microagression.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Good. Negative stats are bullshit. More flexibility in character creation is a good thing

I disagree. Negative stats, add a satisfying weight to the racial decision you make when creating a character. Not only that but it offers a great potential for roleplaying when you pick a race that isn't exactly suited to play a certain class. An Orc trying to become a Wizard can offer up some wonderful character growth throughout a campaign as your character is forced to overcome his personal hardship to achieve his/her dreams.

Now race means nothing. And ironically not having stat penalties makes the only reason for race to matter, literal racism within the gameworld. Since on paper every race is closer to the same, the only way to give a players racial choice weight it to make something in the game world Racial.

Correct me if I'm wrong but that is what we didn't want to happen right?

 

[Dreiko]

The idea is you have to balance out the negative stats in your party which fosters more creativity. Making orcs and kobolds the same as everyone else removes the variety you would otherwise have.

Also lore-wise, it loses the flavor of uniqueness and makes everything samey.


It's not that you couldn't play an orc wizard before, either, it's just that you'd actually be playing an orc wizard, and not a wizard who happens to be an orc. Having to overcome the handicap of your race is part of what makes the roleplaying fun and immersive.


Also the bigger issue is that this is just a huge retcon that invalidates a ton of old stuff. If orcs were just as smart all along then a bunch of old events no longer even make sense.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Right. Because those older events were bullshit to begin with.

Y'all can still have a culture that eschews wizarding and book learning without making sentient creatures literally and forever dumber than others.

It's called role playing and world building.

(And it probably says something that y'all are hyper focused on orca being dumb and not one word about kobolds being weak)

Like, maybe I don't want my orc wizard's character arc to be "overcoming the limits of their race" like every other orc wizard. Especially when overcoming said limit is mechanically impossible

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Dreiko]

Right. Because those older events were bullshit to begin with.

Y'all can still have a culture that eschews wizarding and book learning without making sentient creatures literally and forever dumber than others.

It's called role playing and world building.

(And it probably says something that y'all are hyper focused on orca being dumb and not one word about kobolds being weak)

Like, maybe I don't want my orc wizard's character arc to be "overcoming the limits of their race" like every other orc wizard. Especially when overcoming said limit is mechanically impossible

I mentioned Kobolds in the post right above yours, actually. That's not a good change, either.

 

[Satinavian]

Personally i don't have a problem with attribute modifiers for non-humans in fantasy games. I would have with modifiers for humans though.

But D&D in particular makes the main stat far too important resulting in crippling weaknesses for statwise suboptimal race-class combinations. Mitigating that might thus be a good move overall.

 

[09philj]

People in real life have run, and still run, their societies in wildly different ways to each other, despite how similar we are deep down. Getting rid of racial penalties and alignment helps do away with the whole idea of universally stupid, evil primitives in the game. That will hopefully discourage players from just arbitrarily going in and slaughtering orcs which has some colonialist overtones which are a touch yikes in this day and age. There is still a roleplaying challenge involved in asking why an orc might be operating outside of orc culture, but it is now in questioning why and how an orc came to be there. All they've eliminated is the how, which wasn't particularly interesting to start with.

 

[Dreiko]

People in real life have run, and still run, their societies in wildly different ways to each other, despite how similar we are deep down. Getting rid of racial penalties and alignment helps do away with the whole idea of universally stupid, evil primitives in the game. That will hopefully discourage players from just arbitrarily going in and slaughtering orcs which has some colonialist overtones which are a touch yikes in this day and age. There is still a roleplaying challenge involved in asking why an orc might be operating outside of orc culture, but it is now in questioning why and how an orc came to be there. All they've eliminated is the how, which wasn't particularly interesting to start with.

You just removed the concept of a cool colonial oppressor campaign with what you described. As well as cool killing sprees in a morally justifiable ways, which can make for an epic battle due to sheer numbers involved. I for the life of me can't fathom why you'd wanna do that. You can be free to not make such a campaign or to not play in one. Why do you have to impose that choice on other people though?

Are you gonna cut out just all evil alignments outright and limit them to NPCs? Is everyone supposed to play lawful good chars because anything else in real life makes you an asshole?

 

[Satinavian]

You just removed the concept of a cool colonial oppressor campaign with what you described. As well as cool killing sprees in a morally justifiable ways, which can make for an epic battle due to sheer numbers involved. I for the life of me can't fathom why you'd wanna do that. You can be free to not make such a campaign or to not play in one. Why do you have to impose that choice on other people though?

You don't need dumb races for cool colonial oppressor campaigns. You can oppress people who are as smart as you just fine.

You don't need evil races for morally justifiable killing. The concept of a bellum iustum can be realized in many ways. And it certainly does not hurt your game if people actually have a reason to fight.

Are you gonna cut out just all evil alignments outright and limit them to NPCs? Is everyone supposed to play lawful good chars because anything else in real life makes you an asshole?

Oh, you can play racists and murderers as much as you like. You just don't get to claim that their racism prejudices are true and that the murder victoms were evil without knowing anything about their prior behavior.

 

[Buyetyen]

An Orc trying to become a Wizard can offer up some wonderful character growth throughout a campaign as your character is forced to overcome his personal hardship to achieve his/her dreams.

I can work with a player to roleplay all that without the need for negative stats.

The idea is you have to balance out the negative stats in your party which fosters more creativity. Making orcs and kobolds the same as everyone else removes the variety you would otherwise have.

Also lore-wise, it loses the flavor of uniqueness and makes everything samey.

Only if you require mechanics for every single aspect of roleplaying. There are tons of systems with far less crunch than DnD that manage a degree of diversity that according your argument should be impossible.

You just removed the concept of a cool colonial oppressor campaign with what you described.

If you can't run such a concept without racial stats, then you're a pretty mediocre writer and roleplayer.

As well as cool killing sprees in a morally justifiable ways,

I tell good stories, not juvenile power fantasies.

Are you gonna cut out just all evil alignments outright and limit them to NPCs? Is everyone supposed to play lawful good chars because anything else in real life makes you an asshole?

 

[CriticalGaming]

I can work with a player to roleplay all that without the need for negative stats.

But then there is no mechanical reason behind the struggle. At that point you are just struggling for the sake of the roleplay.

The negative stats allows a player to get emersed into his character better. He isn't casting magic right now because he hasn't gotten there in the story arch of his character, he isn't casting magic because his stats simply don't ALLOW him too. So that character growth becomes both story and mechanical. Not only does he get the ultimate rewards of magic ability within the story, but his character sheet will also reflect this. It allows the player to feel good in both ways.

Without the negative stats, you are only falsely limiting yourself. Because players will allocate the stats to do what they want in the end whenever possible, the chancesare they'll put the stats where they need to be. But with the negative stats, that still might not be good enough, and thus an arch of earning there stats factors in and ultimately feels better to play in the long run.

Also I find it funny you link a burning strawman, when this whole situation was caused by a strawman fallacy in the first place. So I guess the strawmen have gone round and round in a circle.