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Wizards of the Coast announces plans to enhance diversity in Dungeons and Dragons

NecrosaroIII

Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters

Summary: Orcs and Drow are no longer evil

-Racial traits will be analyzed. They're be releasing a new product that teaches how to make ability scores adjustable for every race

- Each book will be reprinted to remove racially insensitive language. Specifically Curse of Strand, which features the Vistani (stand in for romani)
 
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Can't wait for all those extraordinary new and modern flavors to make it into the game :messenger_bicep:

I5Vm54S.png
 

NecrosaroIII

Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
I'm actually okay with Orcs not being dumb anymore. Tolkiens orcs weren't particularly low intelligence. Just nasty and cruel.

But they need to stay evil. They are not people
 
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Blond

Banned
I thought DnD everyone literally just painted a figure of their "avatar" and called it a day? That's what I've been for years, been everything from an Orc to a literal Black Mage and I know I'm not the only. The game is only as disverse as the people playing it and you'd think the people who actually made it would realize that lol.
 
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Lanrutcon

Member
Oh, hey. Another hobby that went mainstream and is now being taken apart.

How's Warhammer and Pathfinder riding the storm? Gotta know the hippies are coming for those next.

"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only cancelling"
 

NecrosaroIII

Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
Pathfinder is irrelevant now. 2nd Edition failed to make a dent. Warhammer is trucking along doing its weird thing.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member

Summary: Orcs and Drow are no longer evil

-Racial traits will be analyzed. They're be releasing a new product that teaches how to make ability scores adjustable for every race

- Each book will be reprinted to remove racially insensitive language. Specifically Curse of Strand, which features the Vistani (stand in for romani)

chang-community-dungeons-dragons.jpg
 

ShinNL

Member
Now they do this!? That's so lame. Hyperbole aside, I really wanted an Aasimar but the stats made no sense for my class and I had to settle for something else.

Also quite lame they only changed Orcs and Drows. No love for Goblins even though they're official characters? Biased I tell you :messenger_pouting:
 

NecrosaroIII

Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
They're eyeing all races. That's just their priority. Vistani are being change dtoo
 

Kadve

Member
It's kinda strange though, the entire idea behind d&d is freedom to role play, so what stopped you from already playing something more "diverse"?
 
Oh, hey. Another hobby that went mainstream and is now being taken apart.

How's Warhammer and Pathfinder riding the storm? Gotta know the hippies are coming for those next.

"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only cancelling"

GW has been embracing this stuff as well. Toning down their lore, for example Slaanesh beastmen like bling instead of sex/rape and Gav Thorpe has been using ve, vis, ver pronouns in his Black Library books. I suspect it's only a matter of time before the infection hits all of them.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Hmm, so I expect to see undead, automata, golems, and elementals as the only "bad guys" in the game going forward. Even demons and devils will be too personable to be plain evil and need killing.

Heck, just scrap all combat rules and let it become a therapy session! Clearly combat is triggering!

I think we are gonna see a big pendulum swing in a few years. The hardcore fan base will want more crunch and the socialites will want less. The "diversity at all costs" camp is mostly likely concentrated in the latter group.

I'm still convinced that "diversity" is why we haven't seen Dragonlance yet. It relies so heavily on the book characters and all of them are lily white cishets.
 

LoV

Banned
So, does this mean WotC equates blacks to orcs? I think they need to be cancelled for that.
 

johntown

Banned
So how will a trans Orc work? Orc men and women already look basically the same? Are Orc women going to actually look more like women now?
 

Fbh

Member
tenor.gif


Who is evil and how does making orcs not evil, mean diversity? Unless Wizards are admitting orcs were based on blacks and they hate blacks?

Basically some dude looking to be outraged on social media quoted some text that was like "Orcs are inherently evil" and went "Why would you say that about black people?". And then instead of pointing out how such a statement is only showing that person's own prejudice, other SJW's went "wow yeah, why would you say that about black people Wizards of the Coast".

And now we get this
 
tenor.gif




Basically some dude looking to be outraged on social media quoted some text that was like "Orcs are inherently evil" and went "Why would you say that about black people?". And then instead of pointing out how such a statement is only showing that person's own prejudice, other SJW's went "wow yeah, why would you say that about black people Wizards of the Coast".

And now we get this
The gif perfectly suits my feelings after reading that (not aimed at you, but the idiots who think orc=black)
 
GW has been embracing this stuff as well. Toning down their lore, for example Slaanesh beastmen like bling instead of sex/rape and Gav Thorpe has been using ve, vis, ver pronouns in his Black Library books. I suspect it's only a matter of time before the infection hits all of them.

That's fucking fascinating considering the Drukhari literally live by getting hard to nonconsensual torture and violence of all sorts. Slannie is supposed to be the embodiment of that excess the Drukhari carry from the Eldar before the fall.
 
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That's fucking fascinating considering the Drukhari literally live by getting hard to nonconsensual torture and violence of all sorts. Slannie is supposed to be the embodiment of that excess the Drukhari carry from the Eldar before the fall.

The Drukhari are now on the side of order in Age of Sigmar. It's all so World of Warcraft now I haven't kept up with the lore, I hope 40k is fairing better. They did announce a while back that they're planning to bring back the Old World, so maybe there's hope?
 
The Drukhari are now on the side of order in Age of Sigmar. It's all so World of Warcraft now I haven't kept up with the lore, I hope 40k is fairing better. They did announce a while back that they're planning to bring back the Old World, so maybe there's hope?

I was actually talking about 40k - don't know about regular WH.

I'm actually not much a WH (40k) gamer, I just really enjoy the lore. If that makes it into 40k it will make no fucking sense - Slaanesh was birthed from the Eldar before the fall being depraved in basically every way imaginable.
 

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
D&D: how about you can roleplay as whatever you want?
Twitter: nah, what about our representation?
D&D: uhh, okay how about a limited $49.99 Popvinyl released every month based on a non-white character?
Twitter: yesss kweeeen! That's exactly what I have been craving. Thank you for finally representing me in media <3

Modern consumerism is narcissism.
 
Oh, hey. Another hobby that went mainstream and is now being taken apart.

How's Warhammer and Pathfinder riding the storm? Gotta know the hippies are coming for those next.

"In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only cancelling"
GW released a statement on making Wh40k more diverse after George Floyd.
 

Atrus

Gold Member
There are already non-evil Drow characters but it’s the cruel, evil sadism that makes the Drow. It’s their culture and how they survive the underdark.

They’re not even among the worst evil creatures.

I don’t think they need to be messed with as we get some interesting characters from them over time and they’re actually deemed to be a cool race as it is.

Are we going to redeem Illithids next? Is it unfair to stereotype a race of enslaving, brain eaters?
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Isnt there already a magic item that changes your gender? So trans people shouldn't even exist in dnd. And why would a player even create one, they could just pick the gender they want since 5e has already done away with the gendered differences in player races. (So min/maxers have no incentive to go male or female).

Seems to me making a trans character is just an excuse for a player to put on a lot of theatrics/exercise their own demons. Heck, I barely recall character sexual orientation being relevant in any game I've been in since talking about that stuff in a group setting is kinda ewww anyway. That shows up more in pseudo-celeb streaming sessions with a lot of pink haired theater majors flexing their acting chops.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
So here's my experience: if you sit down at a table for session 0 of an upcoming campaign there are some obvious red flags during character creation. Anyone who spends more time and focus on the sexuality of their character than other aspects, like backstory/motivations/goals/personality? That's your first warning playing with that person is going to have challenges down the line and that they're using their character as some kind of platform for their own issues.

That shows up more in pseudo-celeb streaming sessions with a lot of pink haired theater majors flexing their acting chops.

I got into tabletop streams and podcasts last year, and good God that's a thing. The % of players with colored hair and a stupid haircut directly correlates to the amount of cringy over acting.
 
I played a Vhaeraun-worshipping Drow cleric once who tricked the party into believing he was a cleric of Eilistraee (before the merger, mind you). He would act the part of a good Drow seeking redemption, while secretly scouting out new markets for Bregan D'aerthe to run their typical schemes of extortion, racketeering, and money laundering. It was fun being a secret Murder Hobo, especially when sometimes the party was hired to investigate my antics.

The trade routes that got opened up between the surface and underdark were quite lucrative, and if a few Iblith got raped and murdered along the way who cares. My character must have left a dozen little half-breed bastards all over the surface of Faerûn.

My Drow character was pretty fucking chaotic evil.


Edit - To be fair though, there's a reason why the Golden Rule is supreme to all others. My current character is a LG Kobold Warlock who hails from a tribe of Bahamut-worshipping Kobolds who manage a city's sewers in exchange for mining rights, and being left to their warrens. When I joined the party as a local guide the first thing I did was scramble up the back of the barbarian character to ride on his shoulders, much to his chagrin. He was really pissed when he woke one day to find a wooden saddle attatched to the neck of his plate armor, but quickly got over it when I started raining down eldritch blasts on his foes.

Picture Conan the Barbarian with a madly cackling 2.5 foot tall Kobold riding him into battle, firing energy blasts from a jeweled pickaxe.
 
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Your characters sound pretty cool, Torrent. Did your drow know Jarlaxle?
Met him a few times in the character's backstory obviously, but I don't believe in involving famous hero characters in player campaigns. My philosophy is to make fleshed out characters, not obviously min-maxxed characters. I like to talk to the DM before the game, and work with them to slot what I'd like to do with the character into what the DM wants to do with the campaign.

I have the most fun when letting the DM have heavy influence with my characters. One time I even secretly played as the Lieutenant of the BBEG from the get-go, becoming the mini-boss at the end of the campaign. We all play with networked laptops in front of us, so it's quite easy to run messaging programs with dice rollers for secret communication between players and DM.

On the topic of the thread take my Kobold for example, we started the campaign with the party coming together in the aformentioned city with the Kobold sewer workers. My character was a 'level 0' miner who was tasked with leading the party through a nearby abandoned mine to clear out some goblins. At the end of the mine my character took an unassuming talon amulet from the goblin boss that opened up a connection to Sonngrad the Wing, one of Bahamut's 7 great golden wyrms. She is now my Patron as a LG Celestial-Patroned Tomelock who focuses on eldritch blast for combat, and healing/support magic to shore up our party's lack of a cleric. He has skills in mining, metal appraising, gem appraising, etc, because he's a damn miner, and oftentimes those skills help outside of combat. He also rides the barbarian.

That is how you take an 'evil race', and turn them into good characters, with a bit of creativity.
 

ShinNL

Member
So here's my experience: if you sit down at a table for session 0 of an upcoming campaign there are some obvious red flags during character creation. Anyone who spends more time and focus on the sexuality of their character than other aspects, like backstory/motivations/goals/personality? That's your first warning playing with that person is going to have challenges down the line and that they're using their character as some kind of platform for their own issues.
For people who do this... those two things are probably the same :messenger_confused:

Backstory: How I realized I'm...
Motivation: Proving that even as a...
Goals: Conquer the world as a....
Personality: PERFECTLY NORMAL AND WELL BELOVED

Something like that, probably.
 
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