DnD addresses racism.

[Dreiko]

No, that's just the limit of your imagination.



So it doesn't really matter, and you're just complaining over nothing.

My imagination is illimitable, it's just informed by a good dose of logic when dealing with matters such as this, so I dismiss a lot of hypotheticals that could be, but likely aren't, truth.

And yes, in a sense this never mattered so my complaining about people virtue signaling over something that doesn't matter also doesn't matter, but the point here is not illustrate that this thing matters. No, the point is to clarify that this is virtue signaling over something that doesn't matter, hence need not change, due to it being this way traditionally for forever basically.

You don't get to change tradition that people are familiar with so you can virtue signal without getting called out for it. The actual components of the tradition and the significance thereof is immaterial.

 

[Hawki]

And yet here you are, being offended by their offense at a fucking fantasy game. Because apparently YOU have no purpose in life than to try and be offended at other people's offense at make-believe stuff that can fairly often show the cultural/physiological influences from real world cultures. Funny that.

If people are offended over silly shit, one's entitled to at least raise an eyebrow.

I mean, the trolls in World of Warcraft don't just HAPPEN to sound like Jamaican's by pure accident. They don't just HAPPEN to have outfits and ancient structures that scream Aztec/Mayan (and probably some other inspirational sources I'm not familiar with) by pure accident. They don't worship an ancestor spirit/god pantheon , who just HAPPEN to be called the Loa, and even have one whose name is clearly a variation on Baron Samedi by accident. Those are such painfully obvious pulls from a real world culture. And I don't think it's unreasonable, for someone who IS of those cultures, to take offense, if they so blatantly pull from their source material, but then butcher it, or misrepresent it, or make it depict the culture in a very negative way. I mean even before the later expansions included the Loa, when I first started playing WoW, and played almost exclusively trolls (because they fucking rule), when I saw their ancient cities in that desert zone, my brain instantly said "oh, ok so we're going for an Aztec/Mayan vibe. Head dresses, bones through the nose, all that jazz. Ok cool." There was no doubt or subtlety in it. So if they were all depicted as being evil, ravenous baby eaters, who raped horses, and rode off on the women, yeah, I think a person of actual Aztec/Mayan heritage (and then later of...whatever culture the Loa are tied to, I think various African tribes/regions?) actually getting mad about it? Perfectly reasonable.

Except the trolls AREN'T depicted as being "evil, ravenous baby eaters," so I'm not sure what the issue is.

I'm not dismissing that the trolls in WoW are inspired by the cultures you describe, I'm dismissing the idea that that's bad. Most of the playable races in WoW take inspiration from real-world cultures, and no Alliance or Horde race is inherently good or evil.

 

[happyninja42]

Right, so there's no point to removing all that outside of virtue signaling then.

No, what he means is that the negatives don't actually amount to anything of real value anyway. If a player has a character concept that has nothing to do with intelligence, then it's already going to be a dump stat, so having it be -1 is irrelevant in the math of the character. Conversely if it's going to be a primary attribute, and they are going to play a smart character, as an example of the statistical outlier for that species, then again it doesn't really matter, because they will simply invest starting points into intelligence anyway, buy gear that further boosts intelligence, pick perks that further augment it, and grow it as they level up. Which, again, makes the -1 irrelevant. All those "traits" really do, is give a racial/species preconception. "These guys are -1Int and -1 Cha, ok so they are, as a species, dumber and less attractive/charming than the default" And that IS a racial description.

 

[Dreiko]

No, what he means is that the negatives don't actually amount to anything of real value anyway. If a player has a character concept that has nothing to do with intelligence, then it's already going to be a dump stat, so having it be -1 is irrelevant in the math of the character. Conversely if it's going to be a primary attribute, and they are going to play a smart character, as an example of the statistical outlier for that species, then again it doesn't really matter, because they will simply invest starting points into intelligence anyway, buy gear that further boosts intelligence, pick perks that further augment it, and grow it as they level up. Which, again, makes the -1 irrelevant. All those "traits" really do, is give a racial/species preconception. "These guys are -1Int and -1 Cha, ok so they are, as a species, dumber and less attractive/charming than the default" And that IS a racial description.

Yes, and...that's orcs? Is that supposed to be a bad thing? It's legit accurate to the thing you wanna depict when you depict an orc.

Just to clarify, dnd is not some kind of nonracial futuristic utopia where everyone fucked everyone enough to all be the same one race. It's very racially dichotomized, and the more uniqueness (both bad and good) you give each race, whatever the real world ramifications, does indeed work to enrich the world and flesh it out more. That you can also do this in other ways too does not mean that this way is not one of the ways in which this has been done. Even if you compensate elsewhere, that's still less than if you compensated, but also had the help of this bit of flavor on top too. You can always do a ton of work extra to make the stories you tell cooler but you're removing this one brick from your house for no actual reason. Pretending people claim this one brick is the same as a whole house is disingenuous so denying that it'll singlehandedly make for a cool story is to deny a strawman. It just adds something to it that you have no ingame reason to remove.

 

[happyninja42]

If people are offended over silly shit, one's entitled to at least raise an eyebrow.

Sure, but if one is going to do more than just "raise an eyebrow" and instead mock said people, while simultaneously being offended at THEIR offense, to the extent of 12+ pages of a thread, spread out over several MONTHS, then they don't really have much high ground to stand on when throwing those "oh my god you are overreacting to nothing" stones.

Except the trolls AREN'T depicted as being "evil, ravenous baby eaters," so I'm not sure what the issue is.

I'm not dismissing that the trolls in WoW are inspired by the cultures you describe, I'm dismissing the idea that that's bad. Most of the playable races in WoW take inspiration from real-world cultures, and no Alliance or Horde race is inherently good or evil.

As I recall for the trolls, depending on WHEN in the timeline, yes they were very much evil. The Zul...whatever they were called, tribes, were pretty horrible creatures, that sacrificed anything not troll, to powerful beings, for power. But I was more using them to point out how ubiquitous the "let's pull inspiration from other cultures that aren't us, because we want something exotic (to them)." So they yoink stuff from other cultures, and societies, and pick and choose, and patch it together in ways they think are cool, but you know, might actually annoy the people they took inspiration from.

As to "no alliance or horde race" is inherently good or evil, well that's a matter of perspective now isn't it? I mean ask an alliance race if the only good orc was a dead orc, and depending on which game timeline, expansion dlc, or story arc is going on, and many of them will say "yes, the only good orc, or forsaken, is a dead one." I mean that was the entire arc for Admiral Proudmoore's attack on the Horde in WC 3. He was a racist fuck, who thought they were all just mindless beasts, because he felt they were nothing but their -2 Int/-2 Cha/prone to Berzerk mode stats without nuance. So he attacked them, causing further conflict. And Grom Hellscream, equally thought that all alliance were horrible bastards, who were happy to just enslave and subjugate all orcs, so the only good human, is a dead human. Again, racial stereotypes being tossed around. I mean hell, when that expansion came out, where ....i forget her name, that undead banshee ***** that was running the horde, showed her cards as an evil *****, the player base of the horde were very vocal about the "fuck, AGAIN with the "Horde are the badguys, run by an evil asshole" story arc? You know we aren't evil right?"

But I'm digressing, the point is that, while my troll example isn't the best of a purely negative description, it is an example of how fantasy creators copy/paste from real life all the time, and they don't necessarily think about how it might look to someone else, with a different frame of reference.

 

[Buyetyen]

You don't get to change tradition that people are familiar with so you can virtue signal without getting called out for it. The actual components of the tradition and the significance thereof is immaterial.

And here we get to the real problem: things aren't staying the same way forever and that bothers you. Too bad.

 

[Hawki]

As I recall for the trolls, depending on WHEN in the timeline, yes they were very much evil. The Zul...whatever they were called, tribes, were pretty horrible creatures, that sacrificed anything not troll, to powerful beings, for power. But I was more using them to point out how ubiquitous the "let's pull inspiration from other cultures that aren't us, because we want something exotic (to them)." So they yoink stuff from other cultures, and societies, and pick and choose, and patch it together in ways they think are cool, but you know, might actually annoy the people they took inspiration from.

Something to keep in mind is that there's no one troll society/culture. There's multiple troll tribes, and various troll empires in the lore. For instance, for the dwarves, the Dark Irons were dicks, that isn't saying "all dwarves are evil."

Also, are people from these cultures complaining? Maybe. Haven't seen it though. It's the old cultural appropriation debate, where often the most outraged are from those outside the culture that's being appropriated.

As to "no alliance or horde race" is inherently good or evil, well that's a matter of perspective now isn't it? I mean ask an alliance race if the only good orc was a dead orc, and depending on which game timeline, expansion dlc, or story arc is going on, and many of them will say "yes, the only good orc, or forsaken, is a dead one." I mean that was the entire arc for Admiral Proudmoore's attack on the Horde in WC 3. He was a racist fuck, who thought they were all just mindless beasts, because he felt they were nothing but their -2 Int/-2 Cha/prone to Berzerk mode stats without nuance. So he attacked them, causing further conflict. And Grom Hellscream, equally thought that all alliance were horrible bastards, who were happy to just enslave and subjugate all orcs, so the only good human, is a dead human. Again, racial stereotypes being tossed around. I mean hell, when that expansion came out, where ....i forget her name, that undead banshee ***** that was running the horde, showed her cards as an evil *****, the player base of the horde were very vocal about the "fuck, AGAIN with the "Horde are the badguys, run by an evil asshole" story arc? You know we aren't evil right?"

These are in-universe biases, not out-of-universe biases though.

In Lord of the Rings, orcs are inherently evil. This isn't some anti-orc prejudice, however well deserved, it's an absolute, in-universe fact. In WoW, none of the playable races are inherently good or evil. There's certainly 'pure evil' forces (e.g. the Burning Legion), but again, not playable. And as far as I'm aware, no-one's complaining of demons being stereotypes.

 

[Dreiko]

And here we get to the real problem: things aren't staying the same way forever and that bothers you. Too bad.

It should bother anyone who cares about a world. When you change something in a canon or lore that is well-established, you weaken the foundation of every other element in that universe, because it, too, is now subject to arbitrary change. It makes everything else feel that much less real for it. You now have less incentive to become attached to something, because it may vanish into mist as soon as popular complainers gain enough power to have it do that. This should be something that is above such concerns, not something subservient to them.

If you wanna make your own fantasy themed world where orcs are not dumb, cool, go ahead. TES did so, for example. I always play an orc in skyrim cause I think they look cool (also love the berserk skill they have).


When you write something and set it in stone, it is a huge problem if it doesn't stay the same forever. Especially when it is not the actual person who wrote it coming out with a valid reason to change it and justifying himself, but rather new people who got into the picture later. It is frankly dirsespectful of them to overwrite the origins of their works.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Also, are people from these cultures complaining? Maybe. Haven't seen it though.

I find that a bit odd, it's hardly uncommon.

In Lord of the Rings, orcs are inherently evil. This isn't some anti-orc prejudice, however well deserved, it's an absolute, in-universe fact.

Except when it isn't, but that's another topic.

In WoW, none of the playable races are inherently good or evil.

Assuming that to be true, there's still a fair few stereotypes being thrown around. The word "savage" comes to mind.

Not to mention (as is common in fantasy), the human groups are based on white people, and the inhuman ones based on PoC. Not an absolute rule, but generally.

 

[Kae]

Right, so there's no point to removing all that outside of virtue signaling then.

So I just want to address this real fast, you can claim virtue signalling if you want except for the fact that it isn't, sticking with the Yuan-Ti example that Happyninja used recently and I think I did too at the beginning of the thread, OK so we agree that both you and I are customers of Wizards of the Coast purchasing D&D products, right, but you're white & European so the default characters like Humans kinda represent you in the game to a degree, depending on where you're from there might even be a city that's specifically based on your country, right, so if you want to play something that encompasses your culture it's really easy.
So that's fine, now let's go through the scenario from my perspective, I'm Mexican of Aztec descent though I'll admit that ironically I'm more educated regarding Mayan culture than Aztec, but whatever that doesn't matter, so for the most part because I'm a huge nerd I put a lot of research and work into whatever I'm playing, like if I want to play someone that has that Greek flavour (Which is what I'm doing with my current character) I'll read a ton of books about Greek culture and what it was like and try to bring that to the game in order to make a more interesting experience, regardless that doesn't really limit me at all on what I want to play, because the game acknowledges that and it has rules to fit Greek traditions into the game taking into account that there were all sorts of Greek people, hell there's even a full book on 5E about this, however let's say I want to play something from my culture instead, there's only one way, that's to play a Yuan-Ti which are cold, unfeeling, cannibalistic and evil snake people, like unless the GM is willing to homebrew and alter their setting specifically if I wanted to play an Aztec Doctor, like a Cleric of some sort I'd be forced to either be a worshipper of an evil god or to have my backstory be that I'm some sort of heretical deserter, because the game completely fails to acknowledges the complexities of Mexica culture and the fact that there were all sorts of people living under that empire, they're just evil, cannibalistic snake people that literally eat babies, it's absolutely absurd, like if you want to have your evil snake people empire, why do all the snake people need to be evil?

Like, even Drow Elves have good Gods like Eilistraee to illustrate that not all of them are evil, so anyway if we are both paying customers and I say "Hey I don't like that all snake people are evil, because they are blatantly using both Aztec and Mayan iconography, so I'd like it if going forward you acknowledge that our culture isn't one of evil basically demon worshippers, but something far more complex than that."
Like we're not asking that the Yuan-Ti are suddenly the heroes of the story, just to depict them in a more nuanced way kinda like they do with Drow, so I can play for example an Aztec Cleric of Tonatiuh God of the Sun and Creation or in this case the non-existent D&D equivalent, I can do it with the same nuance that I could a Cleric of Dionysus God of Wine or Artemis Goddess of the Hunt, who BTW are available as themselves if you want or have direct analogues listed in this case in the Mythic Odysseys of Theros book.

So you know, we just want our culture to be handled with the same level of respect rather than just being the evil baby eating snake people, which I believe is perfectly fair if they are going to be taking from our culture, and again they don't have to humour us, but at the end of the day we're also paying customers so if they want to satisfy their customers they may as well do just that.

 

[Hawki]

I find that a bit odd, it's hardly uncommon.

Well, as someone who's played Warcraft since Warcraft III, I haven't seen a single Jamaican or Amerindian of Aztec ancestry complain about the trolls.

Except when it isn't, but that's another topic.

When is it not? When are orcs not evil?

Assuming that to be true, there's still a fair few stereotypes being thrown around. The word "savage" comes to mind.

Yes, savage, as in, the adjective.

Not to mention (as is common in fantasy), the human groups are based on white people, and the inhuman ones based on PoC. Not an absolute rule, but generally.

I'm not sure what you're getting at by "human groups" (unless you mean the human nations), and every non-human species is based on POC. But if we're looking at playable races (not including sub-races, that brings us to 13), the ones that have a 'claim' to being equivalent to real-world cultures are 4 - dwarves (Scots), tauren (Amerindians), pandaren (Chinese), and trolls (Jamaican). That's of course disregarding in-universe differences (e.g. darkspear trolls are Jamaican-based, forest trolls and dark trolls don't). So less than half of all of the playable races have real-world counterparts.

I'd also dispute it's that common in fantasy, but that's another matter.

 

[Thaluikhain]

When is it not? When are orcs not evil?

Tolkien's Christianity made him regret making a race inherently evil so he backpedaled in later life on that.

 

[Hawki]

Tolkien's Christianity made him regret making a race inherently evil so he backpedaled in later life on that.

Yes, but is that a regret, or a retcon? It's one thing for Tolkien to say "I regret making orcs evil," it's another to say "I've changed the canon, orcs aren't inherently evil."

Even if it's in the latter, it really doesn't sync with how the orcs are actually portrayed in the work itself.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Yes, but is that a regret, or a retcon? It's one thing for Tolkien to say "I regret making orcs evil," it's another to say "I've changed the canon, orcs aren't inherently evil."

Even if it's in the latter, it really doesn't sync with how the orcs are actually portrayed in the work itself.

Apparently it was a retcon, in some of his later works that nobody tends to remember.

 

[Dreiko]

So I just want to address this real fast, you can claim virtue signalling if you want except for the fact that it isn't, sticking with the Yuan-Ti example that Happyninja used recently and I think I did too at the beginning of the thread, OK so we agree that both you and I are customers of Wizards of the Coast purchasing D&D products, right, but you're white & European so the default characters like Humans kinda represent you in the game to a degree, depending on where you're from there might even be a city that's specifically based on your country, right, so if you want to play something that encompasses your culture it's really easy.
So that's fine, now let's go through the scenario from my perspective, I'm Mexican of Aztec descent though I'll admit that ironically I'm more educated regarding Mayan culture than Aztec, but whatever that doesn't matter, so for the most part because I'm a huge nerd I put a lot of research and work into whatever I'm playing, like if I want to play someone that has that Greek flavour (Which is what I'm doing with my current character) I'll read a ton of books about Greek culture and what it was like and try to bring that to the game in order to make a more interesting experience, regardless that doesn't really limit me at all on what I want to play, because the game acknowledges that and it has rules to fit Greek traditions into the game taking into account that there were all sorts of Greek people, hell there's even a full book on 5E about this, however let's say I want to play something from my culture instead, there's only one way, that's to play a Yuan-Ti which are cold, unfeeling, cannibalistic and evil snake people, like unless the GM is willing to homebrew and alter their setting specifically if I wanted to play an Aztec Doctor, like a Cleric of some sort I'd be forced to either be a worshipper of an evil god or to have my backstory be that I'm some sort of heretical deserter, because the game completely fails to acknowledges the complexities of Mexica culture and the fact that there were all sorts of people living under that empire, they're just evil, cannibalistic snake people that literally eat babies, it's absolutely absurd, like if you want to have your evil snake people empire, why do all the snake people need to be evil?

Like, even Drow Elves have good Gods like Eilistraee to illustrate that not all of them are evil, so anyway if we are both paying customers and I say "Hey I don't like that all snake people are evil, because they are blatantly using both Aztec and Mayan iconography, so I'd like it if going forward you acknowledge that our culture isn't one of evil basically demon worshippers, but something far more complex than that."
Like we're not asking that the Yuan-Ti are suddenly the heroes of the story, just to depict them in a more nuanced way kinda like they do with Drow, so I can play for example an Aztec Cleric of Tonatiuh God of the Sun and Creation or in this case the non-existent D&D equivalent, I can do it with the same nuance that I could a Cleric of Dionysus God of Wine or Artemis Goddess of the Hunt, who BTW are available as themselves if you want or have direct analogues listed in this case in the Mythic Odysseys of Theros book.

So you know, we just want our culture to be handled with the same level of respect rather than just being the evil baby eating snake people, which I believe is perfectly fair if they are going to be taking from our culture, and again they don't have to humour us, but at the end of the day we're also paying customers so if they want to satisfy their customers they may as well do just that.

I think the issue here comes because you conflate "culture from where you hail from" to "your culture". I think the issue is that people are expected to have a specific culture and an idea of what that is, simply because they were born in a certain place. This is kinda old-world thought, it used to be like that back in the day. It is not like that any more.

Do you know what I see when I see all those Greek references? I see the stories I grew up with shone through the prism of American/British culture. It's its own thing entirely. I do not see that as me experiencing Greek culture, no, not at all, I see it as experiencing American/British culture, which borrows (not appropriates, borrows) a lot of Greek myths, cause they find em cool, which is awesome.


The thing, however, is that that is not really "my" culture at this point either, it's a new age American culture that is a melting pod. It is not being any more representational simply because it is more positive or nuanced than the snake people are. The way I see it, the American and British people just took the things from the Greek myths and tales that spoke to them, and adapted them in ways that they found cool.


No culture is owed to be found cool by American/British culture. These cultures get to decide how they feel about various world cultures and should be free to depict them in any which way they desire.



Also, the big elephant in the room is that, just because you're born in some place, that doesn't dictate your culture. My culture as a trilingual dual citizen with fluency in Japanese is vastly different than what you'd stereotype as the standard Greek culture that'd hypothetically be satisfied by their dnd depictions in the same way you'd be by a more nuanced Astec representation. My culture is actually just the culture of anime fans, gamers, fighting game players, card game players, etc. That sort of thing takes precedence over where I happened to be born at. And my culture is a mix of all of the above, adding with the elements of Greek upbringing and life in America as an adult for the past 15 years, all the while being an avid fan of Japanese pop culture and studying their cultures and music and language.

So, at the end of the day, I really don't get the feeling of representation from things that appease that stereotypical imagined Greek person's wishes, I get representation when people respect gaming and lore and canon and things like that. That is more important to my identity here. How they respect the mediums these works are made for and the culture that sprouts from them is what I actually identify the strongest with.


I find it strange to go to America only to be a foreigner in America. You go to America cause you don't wanna be in wherever you were, so you can be an actual American. So the things that would represent a citizen in the country you left shouldn't be the main thing you still feel represented by. If they are, I don't get not living there in the first place so you'll be immersed in the stuff you so strongly identify with. I left Greece exactly because I had such little affinity for those things and because I admired Japanese and American stuff so much. Not just to get to be Greek in a richer zip code lol.

 

[deleted20220709]

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[Satinavian]

Maybe? Cards on the table, I never really dug too deeply into the DnD settings. I have a passing familiarity with the Forgotten Realms, but that's it. Otherwise I stuck to the core books and some of the supplements I thought were cool like Lords of Madness.

Though now that I have it in my head, I should make a half-orc bard with a hurdy-gurdy.

I am not that much a D&D expert as i mostly play other systems but cannibal halflings are a famous element of Dark Sun. And "barbarian, very close to nature" elf have been done several time. There is even a Wild Elf subrace present in the Forgotten realms with a culture doing little magic, having barbarians as most common martial class and being mostly illiterate.

Ethnic group: "Ok so X DnD race is clearly taking elements from my people's culture, and you gave them a -2 to intelligence, and made them all evil, and engaging in human sacrifice. So you think that my people are dumb, and evil human sacrificers?"

In theory that argument is good. In practice often i have found those similarities pretty farfetched. I even had difficulties seeing black people in orcs but that identification owns a lot to using lingo associated with afroamericans for orcs. Which always gets lost when translated to other languages than English so Orcs are suddenly far less offensive elsewhere. But after enough pointing out i can see bad stereotypes here. It might have taken so long because i don't associate "big dumb brutes" with black people at all and thre is actually not that much connection. Facial featurs and cultural stuff in that direction is most common for Warhammer Orcs/Orks, not for D&D ones.

But i have a harder time with Drow as stand-in for black people. Drow were most of the time portayed with black skin, white hair, red eyes, the hair straight and long and facial features pretty caucasian. They never looked like black people at all. They were cunning, backstabbing sadists which made them evil. They don't share a single negative trait with racial stereotypes of black people.

But i was always disappointed with the Yuan-ti and related scaly peoples as well.


As for cultural inspiration, it is not that D&D is particularly faithful for any cultures. That does include the European medieval stuff as well. It is just a bit of dressing and name dropping and some of the more popular clichees.

But there are many other games that try to do it better. For most regions i can easily find games/settings where the cultures are presented with appreciation and at least some level of research/understanding beyond general pop cultural ideas. In many cases only for a cartain timeframe, but still. There is not that much for subsaharan Africa but even there are some games that only consider those regions and their fantasy equivalent.

And yes, old Europe has the most settings/games and in the majority far more accurate and faithful than D&D offerings.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

It should bother anyone who cares about a world. When you change something in a canon or lore that is well-established, you weaken the foundation of every other element in that universe, because it, too, is now subject to arbitrary change.

I don't know if you know this, but the "5e" part of "5e D&D means "5th Edition". Which itself isn't quite accurate, as there have been half editions and advanced editions of previous editions.

Which means that D&D and its worlds have been iterated on, completely rewriting its lore, mechanics, aesthetics, and even foundational genre, over half a dozen times thus far. When I started playing D&D, only lawful good humans with a certain high end stat lines could become Paladins, half-orcs didn't even exist, and saving throws weren't based on a spellcaster's casting stat. (EDIT: Relevant to this argument, 4th edition Orcs didn't have stat penalties and it somehow didn't break the game in half to appease the SJWs)

So don't try using "you can't change well established lore" as an argument.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

I don't know if you know this, but the "5e" part of "5e D&D means "5th Edition". Which itself isn't quite accurate, as there have been half editions and advanced editions of previous editions.

Which means that D&D and its worlds have been iterated on, completely rewriting its lore, mechanics, aesthetics, and even foundational genre, over half a dozen times thus far. When I started playing D&D, only lawful good humans with a certain high end stat lines could become Paladins, half-orcs didn't even exist, and saving throws weren't based on a spellcaster's casting stat.

So don't try using "you can't change well established lore" as an argument.

The mech change also won't like suddenly change how orc or drow society behaves or anything else like that in lore, if they change that it won't be because a state change forced it. And stat penalties were never really the factor that decides things in lore either.

And man yeah, the amount of shit that changes. They sometimes justify it with spellplague or whatever other event, but still. Shit changes wildly. And the lore between editions... 3.5 to 4th with cosmology change and shit

 

[Kae]

I think the issue here comes because you conflate "culture from where you hail from" to "your culture". I think the issue is that people are expected to have a specific culture and an idea of what that is, simply because they were born in a certain place. This is kinda old-world thought, it used to be like that back in the day. It is not like that any more.

Do you know what I see when I see all those Greek references? I see the stories I grew up with shone through the prism of American/British culture. It's its own thing entirely. I do not see that as me experiencing Greek culture, no, not at all, I see it as experiencing American/British culture, which borrows (not appropriates, borrows) a lot of Greek myths, cause they find em cool, which is awesome.


The thing, however, is that that is not really "my" culture at this point either, it's a new age American culture that is a melting pod. It is not being any more representational simply because it is more positive or nuanced than the snake people are. The way I see it, the American and British people just took the things from the Greek myths and tales that spoke to them, and adapted them in ways that they found cool.


No culture is owed to be found cool by American/British culture. These cultures get to decide how they feel about various world cultures and should be free to depict them in any which way they desire.



Also, the big elephant in the room is that, just because you're born in some place, that doesn't dictate your culture. My culture as a trilingual dual citizen with fluency in Japanese is vastly different than what you'd stereotype as the standard Greek culture that'd hypothetically be satisfied by their dnd depictions in the same way you'd be by a more nuanced Astec representation. My culture is actually just the culture of anime fans, gamers, fighting game players, card game players, etc. That sort of thing takes precedence over where I happened to be born at. And my culture is a mix of all of the above, adding with the elements of Greek upbringing and life in America as an adult for the past 15 years, all the while being an avid fan of Japanese pop culture and studying their cultures and music and language.

So, at the end of the day, I really don't get the feeling of representation from things that appease that stereotypical imagined Greek person's wishes, I get representation when people respect gaming and lore and canon and things like that. That is more important to my identity here. How they respect the mediums these works are made for and the culture that sprouts from them is what I actually identify the strongest with.

It's not that it's owed to us Dreiko, it's that we're customers and we're saying that we find it cool, so while Americans or British people may not, we do and we want them to be cool and also possible heroes too, like the villain stuff doesn't really bother me, it's fine to have them as villains and they're cool as that, but if me as a paying customer that wants it in the game am asking for it, why shouldn't they address this if they think it's going to sell?

It's simply fulfilling market demand, and before you go all artistic intend on me, we're talking about a game by Hasbro that has canonical Crossovers with Rick & Morty and Stranger things, that constantly retcons it's lore every time a new edition comes out and often in re-prints of old adventures so this is nothing new.
Again they retconned the Drow Elves to have a good aligned deity at some point so that there could be more Drow Elf adventurers because they are a super popular race to play.

Anyways it's cool that you view your culture that way, but things are different for me, I'm not white like you I've faced discrimination, I've seen people claim that we're lesser people just by virtue of where we were born and the colour of our skin, claim that we're dumber than white people just because of that so yeah, an accurate depiction of my ancestors is kind of important to me, after all it proves that in many ways Mayan & Aztec cultures were far more advanced than Europeans, their accomplishments in Mathematics and Astronomy are astounding and when I've visited the Pyramids I was absolutely blown away, so you know who cares, my relationship to my culture is different from how yours, it doesn't make it less valuable than yours, I'd say both ways of viewing things are perfectly fine and neither is inherently better than the other.

Anyway, at the end of the day it all comes down to market demand, if the people want to buy a product in which Orcs, Yuan-Ti, Vistani and so on are more equal to other races and more morally and culturally nuanced, that's fine, the reason why they want that shouldn't matter, at the end of the day D&D is a product and they can choose to provide the product the public is asking for if they want, if on the way they want to make political statements because they think that'll help them sell more that's fine too, almost every company does that.

Again you can claim what you want about artistic merit, but D&D has sold out for a long time, if you want something more artistic and more specific you can always buy an independently published RPG, some of them are more politically charged, depending on the game that can mean more PC than D&D or definitely not PC at all, now that's not to say that there isn't any artistic merit to D&D, there is and a lot of it, but you can't expect it to be the critical darling super-nuanced RPG when it's by all intents and purposes the blockbuster movie equivalent, which again is perfectly fine, it's just that D&D has always made sacrifices in the name of marketing, some quite bad, remember when they screwed over 3rd party content publishers because they wanted more money with 4E?
That didn't pan out well, and it costed them quite a few l beloved books and adventures, one example is the Golarion setting by Paizo, which ended up becoming Pathfinder because of that really dumb business move, also like @Secondhand Revenant mentioned that also involved a lot of lore changes many of which weren't well received, anyways, my point is that it's a commercial product and if people are buying this, it's perfectly fine for them to sell it.