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Positive change, or good intentions run amok? Changing the dark races from D&D
#1

Positive change, or good intentions run amok? Changing the dark races from D&D
Positive change, or good intentions run amok?  Changing the dark races from Dungeons & Dragons, what do you think?


'Dungeons & Dragons' Tries To Banish Racist Stereotypes

Quote:Dungeons and Dragons is reconsidering what it means to be evil.

The classic role playing game's publisher, Wizards of the Coast, recently announced some changes it was making to the game in response to the ongoing protests over racism and police violence. While this includes editing some past racist descriptions, as well as adding more diverse writers, the game's designers are also making a fundamental change to the way certain playable characters are portrayed.

When you play Dungeons and Dragons — usually referred to as D&D -- one of the first steps is to create a character. They can be a human or an elf or a gnome or some other mythical creature. These classifications each come with their own backstories, as well as their own baggage. While it's generally up to you if your character is good or evil or somewhere in between, historically some of these characters were depicted in a villainous, monstrous light. Orcs were brutish savages. Drow (dark elves that live underground) were dark skinned and inherently evil.

"It is this thing lurking under the surface that really is painful for people who have faced those sorts of stereotypes in the real world," says Jeremy Crawford, the principal rules designer for D&D.

Lauren Frazier is game developer and a massive D&D fan. When she first started getting into the game, and was trying to encourage her Black friends to do the same, she got a certain amount of hesitance.

"It's hard to see yourself in any role playing D&D if you're a person of color — specifically Black and brown people," she says. "A lot of the characters that are black or brown or blue ... they're evil, they're very one dimensional. And D&D is a game about being yourself and being anyone you want to be."

Of course, any good game needs its villains.

"It's just they will be villains because they have made villainous choices, not because they were born villainous," says Crawford.
Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.


Vivekananda
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#2

Positive change, or good intentions run amok? Changing the dark races from D&D
Whatever brings more people to the game is an improvement I think.

I finished playing a three year campaign last week. My halfling assassin started off as Lawful Good and ended up Chaotic Evil. She seemed to fit in well with the rest of the party. Not that I admitted to playing someone Chaotic Evil until afterwards. Nor was it intended that she would go that way. I spent like half a year at one point keeping track of things that would influence her alignment (Good vs Evil, Lawful vs Chaotic) so she could have stayed Lawful Good instead of changing to Chaotic Neutral. But the DM went out of his way to make us all suspicious of one another for dramatic effect.
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#3

Positive change, or good intentions run amok? Changing the dark races from D&D
I don't know anything at all about D&D as I'm not a game player, but I checked
out a list of the Top 15 D&D Best Evil Characters, and I couldn't detect any form of
racism—unless of course I'm missing something major here.

My only comment would be that it's merely a game populated with mythical/fictional
characters, and therefore shouldn't be changed in any way simply to suit the disturbing,
real-world  climate of racism.  And currently and specifically, a lot of this sort of
unnecessary angst has been generated by overzealous rent-a-mob protests.   

For fuck's sake; it's only a game.

—I'd also be interested to find out what characters are considered to be offensive racial
stereotypes.  Or is this maybe just another example of political correctness gone crazy?
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
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#4

Positive change, or good intentions run amok? Changing the dark races from D&D
Characters are all ultimately human and thus you should be able to find yourself in any and all characters in any and all media.
As such it's more about what the player reads into it.
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#5

Positive change, or good intentions run amok? Changing the dark races from D&D
Never played D&D but I like games or fiction that have moral ambiguity involved. Means you actually have to use your brain more. What's wrong with that?
“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” -Carl Sagan.
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#6

Positive change, or good intentions run amok? Changing the dark races from D&D
I suppose if your purpose in life is to produce fantasy games then you do what you can do and pat yourself on the back for it.

I don't regard it as anything significant.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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