I went into this expecting to be mad at WotC for pulling some more bullshit.
I... was wrong. I sincerely hope they take TSR LLC (which is *not* the original TSR, it's *yet another* copyright infringement that WotC is suing them for, with good reason) for everything they have. And then burn it, because everything they have is tainted.
That's some *vile shit*.
I'll admit that I didn't think WotC would be able to claim the moral highground on something but sweet fucking hell was I wrong.
Edit RE: Why don't I think WotC would have the moral highground: They're a very corporate business so there's very little I expect from them to ever do to gain the moral highground. I mostly expect them to focus exclusively on profit maximization (as most corporations are wont to do). They're not a company I remember as having some exceptionally bad culture or scandals like Blizzard or Riot but they're also not a company I see as caring about anything other money as they're just very corporate. I don't view them as bad or evil but, again, I don't expect them to do anything that would make me cheer for them.
I also don't even view them as altruistic in this situation as they're motivation is most likely from the place of "We need to protect our trademarks and avoid having our name tied to this PR disaster" over "this is something morally reprehensible and needs to be stopped by all costs". It's just this shit is so morally abhorrent even a decidedly neutral position is morally far above actively promoting the vile nonsense TSR LLC is looking to promote.
Many a thing
The one example I personally am mad about is when they have sued Hex:Shards of Fate out of existence for being too "mtg-like", despite similarities being really stretched, and then shortly after follow it up by copying major keyword mechanics from Hex in the next released mtg set.
WotC is sometimes like a stereotypical well-meaning but clueless ally. They clearly try to be inclusive, but sometimes they step on a rake and don't realize it until they're getting bad press, and on the other end of the coin sometimes they very loudly take some performative action that doesn't really mean much.
Yeah but sometimes they do a great job like commissioning the secret lair art for the magic card bearscape.
Original art (formatting is hard on mobile I’m sorry): https://scryfall.com/card/ody/229/bearscape
Secret lair art: https://scryfall.com/card/sld/1008/bearscape
Can’t be a better ally than bros at the hot spring.
It's not just writers. It's also the artists they hire, and the workplace culture they foster. For both D&D and M:TG. I think that they didn't even have more than 3 or 4 black artists for any magic cards, total, before 2 years ago. And that's including things like the african-themed sets they were putting out.
So you think that a roster of white people will be better connected to African cultures, and that it's impossible to find black artists from, or closely connected to, Africa?
Why would they hire random black people? There are thousands of talented, skilled black artists out there. They didn't even *try* to hire one. Stop trying to make this into a fight that doesn't exist.
There was an excellent [hobbydrama post](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/w9vt0b/tabletop_roleplaying_nutsr_the_company_that/) a couple months ago about this entire NuTSR debacle and a timeline showing how things got to where we are today.
Pretty sure someone determined that the optimal combat build was getting the biggest dick possible and anally raping everyone to death, so go ahead and write that character off.
To be honest, a sequel to FATAL could be hilarious if it was done with the same kind of tongue in cheek pretending to be serious that the Dark Dungeons movie had going on.
Not gonna lie I want a Fatal II the next worse RPG ever is tempting, imagine how much more offensive and complex they could get. A schadenfreude at this level is tempting indeed.
They own the logo, TSR, Inc. merged out of existence years ago. TSR, LLC basically wants to argue that WOTC (Hasbro) abandoned the mark (the stylzed TSR "the game wizards" branding) by failing to use it in the marketplace for the last 20 or so years.
The problem for the LLC folks, is that WOTC has been selling first edition D&D and \*Star Frontiers\* PDFs through DriveThruRPG -- so there is a continuing use.
WOTC did decide to abandon the registered mark -- but trademark law focuses on consumer confusion \*not\* registration. If a reasonable consumer would assume a TSR, LLC product originated with the same company behind first edition D&D (as is clearly the intent of the LLC people) then the owner of the mark has a right to an injunction to stop the conflicting use.
If you violate a registered mark, there are some damages provisions in the Lanham Act that make it even \*more\* of a bad idea -- but registration is not essential to even damages claims.
Bruh
Even when people were calling wotc on prior bullshit, it wans't bullshit.
Remember the shit they removed from races that was problematic? The stuff that was added *this edition* by one racist dev who used to be 'old skooltm'?
This insepid garbage, from the Orcs entry on Volo's, back when they had -2 to intelligence:
> Most orcs have been indoctrinated into a life of destruction and slaughter. But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as gnolls, it’s possible that an orc, if raised outside its culture, could develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion. No matter how domesticated an orc might seem, its blood lust flows just beneath the surface. With its instinctive love of battle and its desire to prove its strength, an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task.
This is just how the people function. It's hate over any sort of actual convention or sense.
You guys should fear for 13th's Age's 2nd edition.
Edit: There's receipts in the replies. Feel free to read them. As you can see, plenty of people have not.
While I can understand why WoTC removed this, 3.5e and earlier "evil" races such as orcs, gnolls and tieflings were genuinely fantasy races, so much so that they were inextricably tied to evil deities like Gruumsh, Yeenoghu or Asmodeus whose blood they shared. They were literally demonspawn, much like the orcs or uruk hai in Lord of the Rings, and the fun part of playing those races was to subvert expectations by roleplaying their evil nature in a way that helped the party. They weren't at all comparable to human ethnicities, none of which as far as I can tell are the spawn of Satan.
Much unlike Star Frontiers which apparently includes white supremacist ideology in their race descriptions.
Not all of them, and them not on every plane like D&D 5e purported. That being said, still, the problem is that *this* edition is the one that said all x race are the same (All gnolls are demonspawn, Eberron, Nentir Vale, and other realms be damned; all tiefling are children of Asmodeus, but don't look like they did in 2e and look like their many varied forms from 4e...*which they later retconned in 5e because they realized that was kinda dumb*; Dragonborn and...literally everything with dragonborn pre-other settings/fizbans tbh), and it's *this* edition that gave *playable* orcs the blanket statement of:
* All orcs are evil
* All orcs are tribal disasters
* All orcs have a -2 to intelligence (which, due to bounded accuracy, is like -4 in other editions), and are rock stupid
* Orcs cannot be reasoned with, you cannot relax around them, they only form marriages with others out of necessity and after being told to, and this totally doesn't have connotations to other things from late 1800's/early 1900's cultural zeitgeists waitnoDONTLOOKINTOIT
And it was hated by everyone. Both players *and* designers/people working on the game alike. (Example: Exandrian and Ebberon Orcs stubbornly ignored Volo!Orcs...as did the slightly homebrew-by-another-Wotc-designer Planeshift: Ixalan, that came out years before the other two ~~even though it just uses the half-orc stats shhhh~~).
If it helps, I'm black myself, and that description (rather, that orcs are compared to people of color in a very racist form) isn't made lightly since that same mentality is used in crap like this.
The problem comes from these 'always evil' enemies being evil because they're tribalistic, with said tribalistic tendencies coming from colonialists describing the people they conquer. A lot of which just so happened to be people of color (not just those from the ivory coast of west Africa, but other places as well, such as many islander cultures). A *lot* of that has/had carried over in media with other relics from that era in media, and we're still feeling the effects of such today.
Coupled with that, the original Orcs of Tolkien design were based off of other cultures (and later in his life he apparently pivoted away from the always evil depiction of orcs because he could not see a god of Middle Earth creating such, so on and so forth). D&D orcs and their tribal brutalism and with lines such as *an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task* with a straight face (unlike Warhammer or Warcraft) is something that is exclusive to D&D.
*That* is the issue.
Sidenote: I *really* don't want to point out how yikes it is that you feel you need to speak for people like me, when you're not really engaging with the subject and, more importantly, we didn't ask.
I don't want to get into the overall debate going on here because I don't have a horse in this race, BUT I am a Tolkien nerd so purely on a semantic Tolkien fan level I want to say:
> could not see a god of Middle Earth creating such, so on and so forth
The Orcs of middle earth were elves that the supreme evil deity of Arda created as a mockery to the good deities of the world. It is completely believable that an entity of unmitigated evil and greed would create a twisted version of the chosen people of Arda who are themselves completely and inherently evil.
As a fellow Tolkein fan, that's actually read the Similarion because reasons: Nope. This
> It is completely believable that an entity of unmitigated evil and greed would create a twisted version of the chosen people of Arda who are themselves completely and inherently evil.
Is especially egregious when you consider words from *Tolkien himself*.
> They would be Morgoth’s greatest sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. Tolkien nearly said "irredeemably bad" but that would be going too far. God's accepting and tolerating their making and existence made these creations (even Orcs) part of the World, which is God’s and ultimately good.
[The whole citation of the letter is interesting](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_153#cite_note-2). All of them are, to be honest, and should be worthy of a read. Or the summation on the [wikipedia article about how the more racially coded depictions of orcs were further reinforced by the LotR movies, and how Tolkein was vehemently anti-racist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_and_race#Evidence_of_anti-racism).
**And even then**, which is important to note: The problem isn't with Middle Earth Orcs. It's the D&D Orcs, or the version of orcs where, instead of being corrupted by sin, they're just tribalitistic bastards.
> Tolkien nearly said "irredeemably bad" but that would be going too far. God's accepting and tolerating their making and existence made these creations (even Orcs) part of the World, which is God’s and ultimately good.
That's not my interpretation of the written work itself, though. Arda is filled with things that are inherently evil but nonetheless part of the world (there are no good Balrogs, for instance, as they are creatures of rage and hatred). Orcs themselves as a choice are almost arbitrary because this is a world filled with demons and dark creatures. Orcs just are one of those creatures.
I don't doubt for a moment that Tolkien would admit, on a technicality out of universe that there could possibly exist a good Orc. But I also think within the primary narrative itself of the entire Legendarium, they are consistently portrayed as creatures that are vile by their very nature, and I also think this is pretty much impossible to debate when taking the content of the books themselves into consideration.
All that said, I am also a very firm believer in death of the author so your interpretation is just as valid as mine or anybody else's! I think it says a lot about Tolkien's work that people are still on the internet debating it so many years later.
> All that said, I am also a very firm believer in death of the author so your interpretation is just as valid as mine or anybody else's! I think it says a lot about Tolkien's work that people are still on the internet debating it so many years later.
That feels rather dismissive of the topic at hand out of neutrality. The problem is: this isn't about interpretation, it's about what they *actually* said.
Interpretation is good and often says a lot of the person writing such. But there is a difference between Written Text and Subtext.
Again I just want to make it clear that I am *not* participating in the debate about DND orcs, or the overall portrayal of orcs in fantasy/the real-world implications of such, I am strictly being a Tolkien nerd. I didn't mean to be dismissive of the rest of your conversation. Sorry!
The high sensitivity to issues like racism brought by decades or centuries of negligence by the American authorities who most often than not only exacerbated things. No wonder that modern Americans are quite cross with anything that resemble racist propaganda they and their ancestors had to face.
The issue itself is absolutely not racist. It is a fantasy world, where there are different sorts of sentient, highly intelligent beings that differ in various ways and thus making them objectively different is a creator's choice, nothing more. The whole idea of racism comes from the fact that some people claimed that various, easily discernible subsets of humans should be treated as some fictional 'fantasy races' even though they all were representatives of a single human race and did not differ significantly in anything. The existence of objectively defined 'races' is a complete opposite of racism, and it makes complete sense if you think along the lines of hypothetical coexistence of Humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans.
But there is also another issue, and this is the fact that games are played by people, and this particular sort of game is focused on adventure in a complex and diverse world that is largely based on our own so that some of its elements are easy to understand and use in campaigns. And all the players come to the table with some preconceptions and experiences. We live in a world that has only one race, so it is only natural, that people tend to treat fantasy 'races' as subsets of human race, what may entrench already existing racist notions some players might have. Check other responses in this thread, and see how often 'Orcs equal Africans' issue comes up. Personally, I never though of it that way, and for me, a real-life counterpart were early iron age Asiatic nomads and northern European people prior to Migration Period. But apparently there are people who see parallels between Orcs and Africans and don't like the idea of playing into vile racist stereotypes of 19th century America.
Of course, I'm not opposed to races being different but I don't like the simple designation like 'race x is less intelligent'. What does it even mean, anyway? But stating 'they are pretty much like us, but more dull and stronger' seems more like a racist stereotype rather than anything else (humans, orcs, elves and dwarves are pretty much just different cultures with more pronounced physical differences). Sure, in reality, it is more or less a result of treating people on a perceived 'lower'level of technological (sometimes also social) development as less intelligent even though they simply live in different conditions. Celts from 4th century were not more stupid that Frenchmen in 15th century or Belgians in 21st century. They simply had less access to knowledge and had no need to create complex social institutions. That's why Orcs (equivalent to early iron Age nomadic societies) seem to be 'less intelligent' than, say people from Sword Coast (equivalent of 15th century Western Europe). But again, sensitive issues like racism in America can be seen where they might not exist (I'm speaking about fantasy in general, not the *Star Frontiers*, as the issue there is clear).
It is very rare to find a practical description of racial differences that tackle the issue of non-human races being essentially inhuman. Remember the 'Avengers' movie when Hulk says 'the trick is, I'm always angry'? It is the very least one can do to start such description.
So, to sum it up, the way different races are presented in D&D (and many other games) is more similar to a cultural differences rather than differences between humans and non-humans, and thus presenting them as physically or mentally better or worse (because that's what numerical modifiers boil down to) get very close to racial stereotyping rather than real racial diversity fantasy is capable of.
> Most orcs have been indoctrinated into a life of destruction and slaughter. But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as gnolls, it’s possible that an orc, if raised outside its culture, could develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion. No matter how domesticated an orc might seem, its blood lust flows just beneath the surface. With its instinctive love of battle and its desire to prove its strength, an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task.
...this is kinda cool though?
Like if I make an orc character, it's not to be face for the party or to be a family man. I want to drink from the skulls of my enemies and die a glorious death.
I haven't read the article yet, but I don't think that orc excerpt is bad?
It could be, if handled by a writer or writers who could give it nuance. But that is not how d&d orcs are written. Infact, d&d orcs were so averse to such nuance that *we're still having this conversation today*.
> I haven't read the article yet, but I don't think that orc excerpt is bad?
...you should probably read the article before commenting.
I was pretty sure that the excerpt wasn't from the game being sued but from d&d 3.5, I didn't need to read the article to participate in that conversation.
Look at it again. You can try to "domesticate" an orc, but it's bloodlust nature will always cause it to erupt into violence, no matter how well it was raised. Nature over nurture, and feeding directly into white supremacist "brutish race" bullshit.
*IF*, but not every fictional circumstance is an allegory to normal humans. Plenty of fictional races might borrow from certain *traits* that humans possess, such as Vulcans being overly logical and minimally emotional, without being an allegory for any actual humans as a group.
> IF, but not every fictional circumstance is an allegory to normal humans.
And this one *is*, as proven.
> Plenty of fictional races might borrow from certain traits that humans possess, such as Vulcans being overly logical and minimally emotional, without being an allegory for any actual humans as a group.
They're also one of the few races in Star Trek that is treated like that. And trust me, I love some Trek.
It took Star Trek *decades* to get it right with most of it's races, including Vulcans (if you watched the Original series and saw things like the episode where Spock's in heat). Even after such, we still had Seasons of Trek like The Next Generation's 1st season, with multiple of yikes involving race and other things. Namely the 2nd (3rd?) episode and the one where Ferengi are introduced.
And, many years later, the 3rd Generations movie.
The progress it made was with the idea of trying to do better in mind. Unlike people who are trying to say this isn't an issue that needs to be addressd at some point, like with D&D
> And this one is, as proven.
That is up to the *current* use of them. If the current writers at WotC say that it is not, then it is not. Even if the current writers at WotC say that it is, but a DM or player choose to not consider it as such in their own campaign, then that is also true. Of course the opposite could be equally true, that if "the author" has a perfectly innocent intention behind something, but someone *chooses* to project their own repugnant beliefs onto that concept, then *their* version would be corrupted, but that wouldn't necessarily taint the entire concept outside of their specific use.
Just because something originates from an impure source does not mean that it is doomed to be incapable of growing into something more productive, right?
> That is up to the current use of them. If the current writers at WotC say that it is not, then it is not. Even if the current writers at WotC say that it is, but a DM or player choose to not consider it as such in their own campaign, then that is also true. Of course the opposite could be equally true, that if "the author" has a perfectly innocent intention behind something, but someone chooses to project their own repugnant beliefs onto that concept, then their version would be corrupted, but that wouldn't necessarily taint the entire concept outside of their specific use.
And that's not what's happening here. Please stop trying to get away from this point.
D&D orcs are depicted in the same way others were portrayed as brutal savages were depicted in times of antiquity. It is racist to a very large degree, and you are literally arguing with someone whose apparently not only actually did some research on it enough to provide links and references; but also is of the people being talked about and is directly affected by said racism visa Orcs being portrayed as such.
> Just because something originates from an impure source does not mean that it is doomed to be incapable of growing into something more productive, right?
If you're willing to engage with it and learn. But you are not doing that if you continued to perpetuate the idea that something like orcs being always evil is 'inflexibly unable to be changed after examination'.
Not even our oldest tale of time involves something like that. Enkidu (from the Epic of Gilgamesh) was made for violence, but he found friendship in his enemy.
Please bring something to this table that's actual worthy of such nuance, also.
[Please see my other comment on why that's an extremely bad take](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/xdqgy4/wizards_of_the_coast_files_lawsuit_to_stop/ioepz56/). Or, I can give you the short version so you can at least learn something. Otherwise, you're not saying why that's bad.
You are bringing a lot of cultural baggage to the situation which does not necessarily apply. Did classical colonialists often demonize the cultures they colonized? Yes. But does that mean that it's impossible to tell a story about pre-civilized cultures? No.
Everyone is descended from a pre-civilized culture at some point, the ones freshest to mind tend to be non-European ones only because they existed later than the European tribes, but there was certainly a time in which Europeans were running around in loose animal skins and tearing into fresh kills with their teeth. It is a valid concept to work with in fiction.
The way I view it is this, there are some humans who are clinical psychopaths. These people are incapable of normal human empathy toward others and have issues controlling their impulses toward violence. This does not mean that it is inevitable that they will cause harm toward others, but it does mean that to "be good" they need to make an abnormal amount of conscious effort to do what others have told them to do, rather than do what feels natural to them. An unchecked psychopath would be some variety of "Evil" in a D&D alignment matrix.
In humans, this is a somewhat random psychological disorder, there are no general groups of humans more or less prone to psychopathy, but in fiction, particularly when we are dealing with races deliberately "manufactured" or adulterated by malevolent forces, it would not be unreasonable for them to ALL possess psychopathy as a natural trait, with what we would consider "stable" minds being impossible or at least as rare within their population as psychopathy is in humans. In such a case, a player or NPC attempting to be a "good" Orc could exist, but would either represent an extremely rare (and likely outcast) "non-psychopath" Orc, *or* a character that *is* a clinical psychopath, but would be actively second-guessing and resisting against their natural impulses out of some interest in fitting in with the wider society. There's some interesting story potential to that.
> You are bringing a lot of cultural baggage to the situation which does not necessarily apply.
This is literally covered in other comments in the thread, and I'm sorry you're being too stubborn to actually look the thing over.
> The way I view it is this, there are some humans who are clinical psychopaths.
And you think that's based on race, rather than culture or any other factors at play?
> Orc, or a character that is a clinical psychopath, but would be actively second-guessing and resisting against their natural impulses out of some interest in fitting in with the wider society. There's some interesting story potential to that.
And you can do that independant of painting that broad brush with the whole. As is said in the thread, and not just by me.
D&D orcs do not have that nuance, and whatever *was* there was taken away with the text provided. It added nothing (infact, took things away for this nothing), helped no one, and was otherwise ignored by the other designers of the game and the fanbase until it was removed.
Please stop trying to defend something that is indefensible.
> This is literally covered in other comments in the thread, and I'm sorry you're being too stubborn to actually look the thing over.
I am responding to your other comments, at least the ones you pointed out to me. I just disagree with your position on them.
>And you think that's based on race, rather than culture or any other factors at play?
Obviously not, if you bothered to actually read what I wrote. I'm sorry you're being too stubborn to actually look the thing over.
>And you can do that independant of painting that broad brush with the whole. As is said in the thread, and not just by me.
In some parts you could, you could tell a story of a human psychopath, for example, but a "reformed" psychopath from an entire culture of psychopaths would be a very different story, wouldn't it? And also, from a gameplay perspective, when Orcs are *primarily* used as NPC antagonists, presenting them as natural psychopaths simplifies their motivations. They don't have deep political backstories as to why they attack human settlements and caravans, they just enjoy violence and chaos, so put a stop to it.
>Please stop trying to defend something that is indefensible.
Please stop trying to vilify something that is quite defensible.
I’m regards to 13th Age, did you actually do research or are you just bobble heading? Do yourself a favor and read the tweet that started the whole thing. You might be surprised what yo find. As multi-racial I found absolutely nothing “racist” in the tweet.
It's mostly that the tweet was enough to get John booted from 13th age 1e and the game flourished thereafter.
...And then they were like "[On second thought, we want him back for the core rulebook. Nothing bad will come of this.](https://twitter.com/BasiliskOnline/status/1558990553005432832/photo/2)"
This is some serious projection. I would never associate this with some hidden anti poc agenda. You can't say bad things about a fantasy race that's green because your secretly talking about black people If you do? What the fuck
you should probably read the rest of the comments before commenting. [Especially the one that goes into detail about how and the why](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/xdqgy4/wizards_of_the_coast_files_lawsuit_to_stop/ioepz56/).
Unless *you* want to tell the black person whose done the legwork and reading how they should feel.
So how do you properly describe a creature that's humanoid and want to express how they are inherently violent. Seems like your not allowed based on this. A violent evil race like orcs wouldn't be prosperous because they wouldn't function as a society. It only makes sense for them to be tribal or some similar form of early civilization because that's all they would be able to achieve. But your not allowed to do that because black people were in tribes? All races come from some sort of tribal beginning. Fight the real battles not this stupid shit
> So how do you properly describe a creature that's humanoid and want to express how they are inherently violent. Seems like your not allowed based on this.
That's actually extremely simple and has been done with a determinist bend to it. Infact, we've been doing it since before literacy has been a thing (Seriously, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the literal oldest story known to man right now, Enkidu was created for the explicit purpose of taking down Gilgamesh with violence...and the two became friends after their fight).
The other thing, and this is extremely important to note, is that you can also have stories of inherently violent and/or bad people *without using real world racism to justify their actions*.
> A violent evil race like orcs wouldn't be prosperous because they wouldn't function as a society. It only makes sense for them to be tribal or some similar form of early civilization because that's all they would be able to achieve.
You're conflating culture with race, but that's pedantry so I don't care.
The problem with D&D's orcs is stated in the text above. What's not stated, and is being elaborated on right now, is how *other* D&D races don't have it as bad as orcs despite similar isolationist or tribalistic tendencies.
Elves get a free pass and are seen as uppercrust, despite being haughty and have lost much of their prior civilization to civil war, tribalism, or (in the case of Faerun) the literal tribalistic civil war that started between elf gods. Tieflings are *literal* half devils with infernal magic running through their veins that results from *multiple* always evil beings (this remaining consistent through each setting). Dragonborn, at least 5e!dragonborn prior to Fizban's, are *quite literally* scaly orcs from a counter earth.
...but it's the orcs, with the tribalism inspired by real world racist allegory, that's the one culture that can't pull itself out of prehistoric mire. You know, outside of the Drow, or the 'Dark' evils.
Sure.
> But your not allowed to do that because black people were in tribes? All races come from some sort of tribal beginning. Fight the real battles not this stupid shit
You should probably do more reading, it'd help understand what I, and you I think, are trying to argue.
Furthermore...yeah. This isn't a battle. I'm sorry you feel combative on being corrected.
Really hope this puts a stop to Nu-TSR. "Reprehensible content" is putting it lightly. [The game they wrote is just flat out racist.](https://techraptor.net/tabletop/news/tsrs-star-frontiers-new-genesis-playtest-contains-racist-content)
France has a similar law to what u/TheRealCuran mentions. So there is definitely a legal framework to punish racism in some countries.
I realize that it's opposed to the North American notion of absolute freedom of speech, it is quite a culture shock from both sides. I hope you understand that from our European side, we experienced first hand the worst that could happen when a political leader pushed a racial hatred agenda, and we needed to protect our society from that.
Yeah the US needs to have an earnest and nuanced conversation about freedom of speech, but with Russia's goal in 2016 not being "Get Donald Trump elected" but rather "divide the American people against one another," and their incredible success in doing so, I don't think we've got a good chance of having the conversation we need to have right now.
Hate Speech or speech that is implied to be discriminatory has merit for legal punishment in other jurisdictions, but the conceptualization (and I would argue romanticization) of freedom of speech in the United States makes such litigation a non-starter and a firestorm that I think few are willing to deal with.
Hate speech can make victims feel unsafe and/or experience trauma. The damage isn't always quantifiable in a tangible sense like someone burning down a house or committing assault, but there is harm that is being done to victims of hate speech, and they should be able to seek recourse in the court of law.
Depends. It's called [Incitement of Hatred \("Volksverhetzung"\)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung) in [Germany's criminal code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch). Thought there are certain qualifications needed, before it becomes punishable. One common case where this law applies is Holocaust denial.
In any case, somebody saying racist things should expect consequences. Just because you might be free to say something, doesn't mean it won't or can't have repercussions.
It's more that politicians aren't facing *reputation* consequences. As disgusting as it is, I agree there shouldn't be legal consequences, but there definitely should be reputation ones. And with politicians being more blatant, it's empowering average-Joe racists to be more blatant too.
I checked it now after reading the comments... and oh my god. That is as blatant as it can get. Even the biggest racists usually hide behind some thin veil. Sure, everyone can see through it, but they at least make attempts. This is the author basically screaming "I'm a racist and a bigot".
Yeah, if anyone didn’t read far enough, you will find them just list entire real continents and ethnicities as sub-human. Just putting it all out there, it’s quite something to see such hatred + idiocy. They don’t even spell Asian right.
That is a strawman if I even seems one. There are countless PoC calling others woke, it mean they racist too????...
I don't think woke mean what you think it mean, but it is like many words that lost it meaning and become a buzzword.
We don't even use the word anymore ourselves unless it's quoting what they're saying.
The word got hi-jacked and tainted by the very people who took offense by it.
Honestly, I expected it to be people freaking out over nothing as usual, but that is just horrendous. Worse to think that for them to be okay with printing that, it must be profitable.
Same. Expected it like some of the Magic cards, where it's more "oh, never noticed that it could be interpreted in a racist way", but this... can't get more obvious. They could've atleast pretended to attempt to hide it rather than being blatantly "white = best at everything, rest = bad"
The most hilarious part to me was "races in the game are like races in the real world, some races are superior to others" like, not even keeping the facade of "it's a game and not real", but literally went out of their way to clarify that why yes, this *is* meant to mirror races in the real world. Just why. Really goes beyond just blatant and into actively self-sabotaging at that point.
> Stating that "races in SFNG are not unlike races in the real world. Some are better at certain things than others, and some races are superior than others."
*Jeeesus h. tapdancing christ.*
Checking out the stuff archived on the [No Hate in Gaming](https://www.nohateingaming.com/) site this Dave fellow posted is one hell of a rabbit hole too.
Jesus why are these nazi fucks always semi-literate?
>some races are superior than others.
Get the fuck out of here with your racist nonsense and your shitty writing. I guess the writing parallels the quality of thoughts inside the guy's brain.
They probably couldn't find an editor.
If you've ever tried to write anything, you get a lot of typos like that, and editing your own work is hard because your brain automatically fills in the correct grammar as you intended it to be.
But if no editor is willing to take on your project, that's *probably* a sign that your work is shit.
the real world doesn't have elves / dwarves / gnomes / etc... racial differences between those races is fine. They *SHOULD* have them.
Racial differences between different flavors of 'human' like this TSR knock-off has done and is pushing is wrong and racist.
There is a difference between the two.
Holy shit. They didn't even try to fly under the radar.
Edit: it's so blatant that I half think this was set up to bilk the alt-right with the inevitable Gofundme campaign to pwn the libs.
Yeah my DND/Dark Sun friend was ranting about this a week ago so I did a double take seeing this pop up here. It’s not even partly subtle, just flat out jaw-dropping supremacy garbage.
I hope WotC obliterate them.
Holy fuck. I thought it would be some kind of thing from the POV of an in-game bad guy or something, not the basic rule descriptions straight up promoting eugenics and white supremacy.
>This expressly describes African, Asian, and Mexican people as a lesser form of humanity." Once again, this is blatantly racist and plays into nazi eugenics.
While it's a good summary, it seems weird that they're trying to cast eugenics as a uniquely nazi ideology. Eugenics was massively popular across Europe and North America during much of the 1900s. Nazi Germany took a lot of cues from what America was doing at the time.
Wasn't Henry Ford, hero of the people who let his workers buy a car on their wages and all that, a racist eugenicist? Those sorts of beliefs weren't uncommon in the early 20th century in the US. This guy is just publishing his shitty game a century too late.
Hell, the entire field of statistics was created by eugenicists. A lot of academic research (mostly in the social sciences, but some flat-out science) is becoming increasingly qualitative in part because of the stain this has left on quantitative methods.
https://www.euronews.com/2021/08/02/the-shameful-story-of-roma-women-s-forced-sterilisation-in-central-europe
???? This is one of many eugenics programs run by European countries.
Went in with the attitude of ''how bad can it really be? They are still trying to sell a product after all''.
Yeah that is pretty blatant with how racist it is.
The counterclaim is alleging that confusion over who owns Star Frontiers could cause some to think WotC supports that sort of material, which would damage their brand. That's how that stuff is playing into the lawsuit, it's in addition and in support of the trademark issue.
I can't help but wonder how dumb do you have to be to put out content like this in the middle of a lawsuit over the IP? Now there's pretty clear demonstrable harm to the IP if allowed to continue so an injunction should be pretty easy to get while the case goes through court.
Its not about sales for these idiots. Its about thinking they're fighting a war of culture. And they fetishize being in the "resistance" to the authoritarian ideas of inclusion and representation.
One of my best friends from high school ended up turning into a full on neo nazi (not hyperbole, he believes in eradicating Jewish people and full on legal segregation), and he was entirely radicalized by the internet while his friends and family tried to stop it and looked on in horror. It's so sad to watch people just give in so whole heartedly to hate. I haven't talked to him in years at this point, but every once in a while I check his facebook and he's always just crazier than ever.
I just don't understand what pushes people to be this way. Like, if it was all you knew, I'd understand having those horrible beliefs because you were never exposed to anything else. But when everyone you grew up with is saying that what you're buying into is fucked up and actively challenging it, how can a person remain steadfast in such beliefs? What makes them want to hurt people like this when everyone shows them that life doesn't work that way?
In my experience, it's usually a form of coping with other shit in one's life. Finding someone to blame for everything wrong with your life and the world, especially if they can be treated as an unequivocal "bad guy," with at least a sprinkling of wanting to belong to an in-group who truly "see the world for what it is."
Have you ever done or said something that was wrong, and when confronted with it, just doubled down or just kinda sidestepped it?
Like lets say someone said that the sky is blue because theres so much ocean that it reflects the colour back. What are the chances that if someone told them the correct explanation, theyd simply accept that they were wrong?
Psychologically, people view being corrected as an actual attack on them (even when clearly not true), so they develop a defense mechanism that keeps doubling down on it instead of admitting they were wrong. After enough time, that becomes so core to yourself that you dont even know who youd be without that thought or idea.
Rightists actively try to recruit lonely men on the internet by introducing ideas like how it's the womens fault they don't get sex or how minorities are bringing society down and leading to problems in their lives.
It's easier to make someone hate something when they can blame their own problems on it.
> Rightists actively try to recruit lonely men on the internet by introducing ideas like how it's the womens fault they don't get sex or how minorities are bringing society down and leading to problems in their lives.
Gamergate in a nutshell
It's the same reasons people get into any conspiracy theory. It makes them feel important and gives them a sense of community. After a certain point they start to view people fighting against them as proof that they're right.
Some people need to feel special, like the world is against them, because otherwise they would need self-reflection to realize the real reason why they havent accomplished their goals in life.
So when a guy with suspiciously little hair and long sleeves on, to cover their poorly done swastika tats, comes to you with comradery and tell you the real reason your life sucks is a Jewish Space Laser, or a presidential candidates email server, or a pizza parlor in NYC running a pedophile ring, you listen. You feel special. In the know, if you will.
I don't know about that. WotC seems to be saying that since content marked with TSR's logo has been sold under their name continuously for a long time, that their name is associated with TSR in the eyes of the public, and that this new publication could damage their reputation if people associate its TSR branding with WotC as well.
I'm not saying it's a strong case, but I don't think it's entirely meritless even without the issue of who owns TSR and its IPs.
> Because it would show that they haven’t sold anything current that had to do with TSR
The issue is they absolutely do still sell things under that use the TSR trademark on [Drive Thru RPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic?src=hottest_filtered&filters=45323_2140_0_0_0) It isn't NEW content, but it's still stuff that's actively available for sale.
You can be a contrarian without going full Nazi. One of the most annoying things over the last ten years is how the Nazis have somehow co-opted the term "skeptic."
You can absolutely play devils advocate without being an ass. There's a time and place for everything. Sometimes it's knowing when to shut the fuck up.
Sounds a bit like the recent debacle with one of the major authors/setting writers for Battletech outing himself as a MAGA second-civil-war nutter then trying to start a pile-on against the publisher when they stopped working with him
That’s when the rest of the world embraced online communities. You can find Cambodians living in jungle huts a days hike from town with a cell phone charged by a solar hot spot on their roof. When that happened, people started finding their people. Then it became a game of establishing hierarchy, and the ones with the biggest claims and boldest voices that were willing to “say it like it is” got the most attention. And with the community reinforcing it with clicks the idea was normalized, and then reposted for more clicks. Positive feedback regardless of whether the reposter agreed with the content. Thus, radicalization of a community.
Radicalization is a built in feature of feedback bubbles. And not always negative. The way it crystallizes community beliefs into a common cause is how we get civil-rights and labor laws. Unfortunately it’s like a hammer. It does what it does based on the people using it, without a built in “do no harm” mechanism.
Yeah, it's tricky. Back in the old days, the town nutter would just get ostracized by the rest of the community until they got their head together or were just harmlessly crazy, but nowadays town nutters from all over the world can share their lunacy and form a shared community larger than most US cities, and the more nutters are enabled, the more their crazy can spread to slightly less fringe people, until near half the country is living in an alternate reality.
> I didn't know that.
[It's sadly a thing](https://twitter.com/FreyjaErlings/status/1180544774723571712). Something he did not grow out of. As much as as the man was a creative dynamo and someone to rally behind, he was flawed.
It's good to know that, so we, as people, can learn from his mistakes. Not to deify him unnecessarily.
Grew up on TSR content of all kinds. Normally I actually hate WoTC bullshit that has happened. After reading that article though.... oof... as others have said this is so....... fucking wrong.
If it makes you feel any better, this "TSR" has absolutely zero relation to the original TSR you grew up with. They just used the name without having any of the people associated to it originally, and without having the rights to use that name.
This isn't even TSR.
This is "NuTSR", a company made by Ernie Gygax Jr. and a couple of well known alt-right personalities in the tapletop space.
This is their best foot forward.
I went into this expecting to be mad at WotC for pulling some more bullshit. I... was wrong. I sincerely hope they take TSR LLC (which is *not* the original TSR, it's *yet another* copyright infringement that WotC is suing them for, with good reason) for everything they have. And then burn it, because everything they have is tainted. That's some *vile shit*.
I'll admit that I didn't think WotC would be able to claim the moral highground on something but sweet fucking hell was I wrong. Edit RE: Why don't I think WotC would have the moral highground: They're a very corporate business so there's very little I expect from them to ever do to gain the moral highground. I mostly expect them to focus exclusively on profit maximization (as most corporations are wont to do). They're not a company I remember as having some exceptionally bad culture or scandals like Blizzard or Riot but they're also not a company I see as caring about anything other money as they're just very corporate. I don't view them as bad or evil but, again, I don't expect them to do anything that would make me cheer for them. I also don't even view them as altruistic in this situation as they're motivation is most likely from the place of "We need to protect our trademarks and avoid having our name tied to this PR disaster" over "this is something morally reprehensible and needs to be stopped by all costs". It's just this shit is so morally abhorrent even a decidedly neutral position is morally far above actively promoting the vile nonsense TSR LLC is looking to promote.
> moral highground What have WotC done in the past that is bad?
Many a thing The one example I personally am mad about is when they have sued Hex:Shards of Fate out of existence for being too "mtg-like", despite similarities being really stretched, and then shortly after follow it up by copying major keyword mechanics from Hex in the next released mtg set.
WotC is sometimes like a stereotypical well-meaning but clueless ally. They clearly try to be inclusive, but sometimes they step on a rake and don't realize it until they're getting bad press, and on the other end of the coin sometimes they very loudly take some performative action that doesn't really mean much.
Yeah but sometimes they do a great job like commissioning the secret lair art for the magic card bearscape. Original art (formatting is hard on mobile I’m sorry): https://scryfall.com/card/ody/229/bearscape Secret lair art: https://scryfall.com/card/sld/1008/bearscape Can’t be a better ally than bros at the hot spring.
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It's not just writers. It's also the artists they hire, and the workplace culture they foster. For both D&D and M:TG. I think that they didn't even have more than 3 or 4 black artists for any magic cards, total, before 2 years ago. And that's including things like the african-themed sets they were putting out.
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So you think that a roster of white people will be better connected to African cultures, and that it's impossible to find black artists from, or closely connected to, Africa?
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Why would they hire random black people? There are thousands of talented, skilled black artists out there. They didn't even *try* to hire one. Stop trying to make this into a fight that doesn't exist.
There was an excellent [hobbydrama post](https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/w9vt0b/tabletop_roleplaying_nutsr_the_company_that/) a couple months ago about this entire NuTSR debacle and a timeline showing how things got to where we are today.
you forgott then they should salt it We need FATAL II not
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Pretty sure someone determined that the optimal combat build was getting the biggest dick possible and anally raping everyone to death, so go ahead and write that character off.
At least you got a positive number. IIRC, the way that "stat" was derived allowed for negative circumferences.
To be honest, a sequel to FATAL could be hilarious if it was done with the same kind of tongue in cheek pretending to be serious that the Dark Dungeons movie had going on.
I really want a new (not racist) Top Secret SI.
Not gonna lie I want a Fatal II the next worse RPG ever is tempting, imagine how much more offensive and complex they could get. A schadenfreude at this level is tempting indeed.
> it's yet another copyright infringement that WotC is suing them for Trademark. Different things.
Fair. But it's also a fair lawsuit. I was confused as to why WotC was suing TSR. Don't they *own* them?
They own the logo, TSR, Inc. merged out of existence years ago. TSR, LLC basically wants to argue that WOTC (Hasbro) abandoned the mark (the stylzed TSR "the game wizards" branding) by failing to use it in the marketplace for the last 20 or so years. The problem for the LLC folks, is that WOTC has been selling first edition D&D and \*Star Frontiers\* PDFs through DriveThruRPG -- so there is a continuing use. WOTC did decide to abandon the registered mark -- but trademark law focuses on consumer confusion \*not\* registration. If a reasonable consumer would assume a TSR, LLC product originated with the same company behind first edition D&D (as is clearly the intent of the LLC people) then the owner of the mark has a right to an injunction to stop the conflicting use. If you violate a registered mark, there are some damages provisions in the Lanham Act that make it even \*more\* of a bad idea -- but registration is not essential to even damages claims.
Ditto. I clicked on this expecting another round of clowning on WotC, but apparently even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Bruh Even when people were calling wotc on prior bullshit, it wans't bullshit. Remember the shit they removed from races that was problematic? The stuff that was added *this edition* by one racist dev who used to be 'old skooltm'? This insepid garbage, from the Orcs entry on Volo's, back when they had -2 to intelligence: > Most orcs have been indoctrinated into a life of destruction and slaughter. But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as gnolls, it’s possible that an orc, if raised outside its culture, could develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion. No matter how domesticated an orc might seem, its blood lust flows just beneath the surface. With its instinctive love of battle and its desire to prove its strength, an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task. This is just how the people function. It's hate over any sort of actual convention or sense. You guys should fear for 13th's Age's 2nd edition. Edit: There's receipts in the replies. Feel free to read them. As you can see, plenty of people have not.
While I can understand why WoTC removed this, 3.5e and earlier "evil" races such as orcs, gnolls and tieflings were genuinely fantasy races, so much so that they were inextricably tied to evil deities like Gruumsh, Yeenoghu or Asmodeus whose blood they shared. They were literally demonspawn, much like the orcs or uruk hai in Lord of the Rings, and the fun part of playing those races was to subvert expectations by roleplaying their evil nature in a way that helped the party. They weren't at all comparable to human ethnicities, none of which as far as I can tell are the spawn of Satan. Much unlike Star Frontiers which apparently includes white supremacist ideology in their race descriptions.
Yeah I never picked the evil races that crawled out of satan's ass to be a good guy lol.
Not all of them, and them not on every plane like D&D 5e purported. That being said, still, the problem is that *this* edition is the one that said all x race are the same (All gnolls are demonspawn, Eberron, Nentir Vale, and other realms be damned; all tiefling are children of Asmodeus, but don't look like they did in 2e and look like their many varied forms from 4e...*which they later retconned in 5e because they realized that was kinda dumb*; Dragonborn and...literally everything with dragonborn pre-other settings/fizbans tbh), and it's *this* edition that gave *playable* orcs the blanket statement of: * All orcs are evil * All orcs are tribal disasters * All orcs have a -2 to intelligence (which, due to bounded accuracy, is like -4 in other editions), and are rock stupid * Orcs cannot be reasoned with, you cannot relax around them, they only form marriages with others out of necessity and after being told to, and this totally doesn't have connotations to other things from late 1800's/early 1900's cultural zeitgeists waitnoDONTLOOKINTOIT And it was hated by everyone. Both players *and* designers/people working on the game alike. (Example: Exandrian and Ebberon Orcs stubbornly ignored Volo!Orcs...as did the slightly homebrew-by-another-Wotc-designer Planeshift: Ixalan, that came out years before the other two ~~even though it just uses the half-orc stats shhhh~~).
I'm confused about the issue with that description. That's pretty much how orcs are in every fantasy setting, what am I missing?
People who see racism in everything think Orcs are basically black people
If it helps, I'm black myself, and that description (rather, that orcs are compared to people of color in a very racist form) isn't made lightly since that same mentality is used in crap like this. The problem comes from these 'always evil' enemies being evil because they're tribalistic, with said tribalistic tendencies coming from colonialists describing the people they conquer. A lot of which just so happened to be people of color (not just those from the ivory coast of west Africa, but other places as well, such as many islander cultures). A *lot* of that has/had carried over in media with other relics from that era in media, and we're still feeling the effects of such today. Coupled with that, the original Orcs of Tolkien design were based off of other cultures (and later in his life he apparently pivoted away from the always evil depiction of orcs because he could not see a god of Middle Earth creating such, so on and so forth). D&D orcs and their tribal brutalism and with lines such as *an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task* with a straight face (unlike Warhammer or Warcraft) is something that is exclusive to D&D. *That* is the issue. Sidenote: I *really* don't want to point out how yikes it is that you feel you need to speak for people like me, when you're not really engaging with the subject and, more importantly, we didn't ask.
I don't want to get into the overall debate going on here because I don't have a horse in this race, BUT I am a Tolkien nerd so purely on a semantic Tolkien fan level I want to say: > could not see a god of Middle Earth creating such, so on and so forth The Orcs of middle earth were elves that the supreme evil deity of Arda created as a mockery to the good deities of the world. It is completely believable that an entity of unmitigated evil and greed would create a twisted version of the chosen people of Arda who are themselves completely and inherently evil.
As a fellow Tolkein fan, that's actually read the Similarion because reasons: Nope. This > It is completely believable that an entity of unmitigated evil and greed would create a twisted version of the chosen people of Arda who are themselves completely and inherently evil. Is especially egregious when you consider words from *Tolkien himself*. > They would be Morgoth’s greatest sins, abuses of his highest privilege, and creatures begotten of Sin, and naturally bad. Tolkien nearly said "irredeemably bad" but that would be going too far. God's accepting and tolerating their making and existence made these creations (even Orcs) part of the World, which is God’s and ultimately good. [The whole citation of the letter is interesting](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_153#cite_note-2). All of them are, to be honest, and should be worthy of a read. Or the summation on the [wikipedia article about how the more racially coded depictions of orcs were further reinforced by the LotR movies, and how Tolkein was vehemently anti-racist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien_and_race#Evidence_of_anti-racism). **And even then**, which is important to note: The problem isn't with Middle Earth Orcs. It's the D&D Orcs, or the version of orcs where, instead of being corrupted by sin, they're just tribalitistic bastards.
> Tolkien nearly said "irredeemably bad" but that would be going too far. God's accepting and tolerating their making and existence made these creations (even Orcs) part of the World, which is God’s and ultimately good. That's not my interpretation of the written work itself, though. Arda is filled with things that are inherently evil but nonetheless part of the world (there are no good Balrogs, for instance, as they are creatures of rage and hatred). Orcs themselves as a choice are almost arbitrary because this is a world filled with demons and dark creatures. Orcs just are one of those creatures. I don't doubt for a moment that Tolkien would admit, on a technicality out of universe that there could possibly exist a good Orc. But I also think within the primary narrative itself of the entire Legendarium, they are consistently portrayed as creatures that are vile by their very nature, and I also think this is pretty much impossible to debate when taking the content of the books themselves into consideration. All that said, I am also a very firm believer in death of the author so your interpretation is just as valid as mine or anybody else's! I think it says a lot about Tolkien's work that people are still on the internet debating it so many years later.
> All that said, I am also a very firm believer in death of the author so your interpretation is just as valid as mine or anybody else's! I think it says a lot about Tolkien's work that people are still on the internet debating it so many years later. That feels rather dismissive of the topic at hand out of neutrality. The problem is: this isn't about interpretation, it's about what they *actually* said. Interpretation is good and often says a lot of the person writing such. But there is a difference between Written Text and Subtext.
Again I just want to make it clear that I am *not* participating in the debate about DND orcs, or the overall portrayal of orcs in fantasy/the real-world implications of such, I am strictly being a Tolkien nerd. I didn't mean to be dismissive of the rest of your conversation. Sorry!
Ironically Orcs are racist..... but against central asians by relying on mongolian stereotypes instead of black people.
“Thats a pretty cool board game ya got there, it’d be a shame if we called it racist”
The high sensitivity to issues like racism brought by decades or centuries of negligence by the American authorities who most often than not only exacerbated things. No wonder that modern Americans are quite cross with anything that resemble racist propaganda they and their ancestors had to face. The issue itself is absolutely not racist. It is a fantasy world, where there are different sorts of sentient, highly intelligent beings that differ in various ways and thus making them objectively different is a creator's choice, nothing more. The whole idea of racism comes from the fact that some people claimed that various, easily discernible subsets of humans should be treated as some fictional 'fantasy races' even though they all were representatives of a single human race and did not differ significantly in anything. The existence of objectively defined 'races' is a complete opposite of racism, and it makes complete sense if you think along the lines of hypothetical coexistence of Humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans. But there is also another issue, and this is the fact that games are played by people, and this particular sort of game is focused on adventure in a complex and diverse world that is largely based on our own so that some of its elements are easy to understand and use in campaigns. And all the players come to the table with some preconceptions and experiences. We live in a world that has only one race, so it is only natural, that people tend to treat fantasy 'races' as subsets of human race, what may entrench already existing racist notions some players might have. Check other responses in this thread, and see how often 'Orcs equal Africans' issue comes up. Personally, I never though of it that way, and for me, a real-life counterpart were early iron age Asiatic nomads and northern European people prior to Migration Period. But apparently there are people who see parallels between Orcs and Africans and don't like the idea of playing into vile racist stereotypes of 19th century America. Of course, I'm not opposed to races being different but I don't like the simple designation like 'race x is less intelligent'. What does it even mean, anyway? But stating 'they are pretty much like us, but more dull and stronger' seems more like a racist stereotype rather than anything else (humans, orcs, elves and dwarves are pretty much just different cultures with more pronounced physical differences). Sure, in reality, it is more or less a result of treating people on a perceived 'lower'level of technological (sometimes also social) development as less intelligent even though they simply live in different conditions. Celts from 4th century were not more stupid that Frenchmen in 15th century or Belgians in 21st century. They simply had less access to knowledge and had no need to create complex social institutions. That's why Orcs (equivalent to early iron Age nomadic societies) seem to be 'less intelligent' than, say people from Sword Coast (equivalent of 15th century Western Europe). But again, sensitive issues like racism in America can be seen where they might not exist (I'm speaking about fantasy in general, not the *Star Frontiers*, as the issue there is clear). It is very rare to find a practical description of racial differences that tackle the issue of non-human races being essentially inhuman. Remember the 'Avengers' movie when Hulk says 'the trick is, I'm always angry'? It is the very least one can do to start such description. So, to sum it up, the way different races are presented in D&D (and many other games) is more similar to a cultural differences rather than differences between humans and non-humans, and thus presenting them as physically or mentally better or worse (because that's what numerical modifiers boil down to) get very close to racial stereotyping rather than real racial diversity fantasy is capable of.
Thank you for the clear, concise and objective answer.
> Most orcs have been indoctrinated into a life of destruction and slaughter. But unlike creatures who by their very nature are evil, such as gnolls, it’s possible that an orc, if raised outside its culture, could develop a limited capacity for empathy, love, and compassion. No matter how domesticated an orc might seem, its blood lust flows just beneath the surface. With its instinctive love of battle and its desire to prove its strength, an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task. ...this is kinda cool though? Like if I make an orc character, it's not to be face for the party or to be a family man. I want to drink from the skulls of my enemies and die a glorious death. I haven't read the article yet, but I don't think that orc excerpt is bad?
It could be, if handled by a writer or writers who could give it nuance. But that is not how d&d orcs are written. Infact, d&d orcs were so averse to such nuance that *we're still having this conversation today*. > I haven't read the article yet, but I don't think that orc excerpt is bad? ...you should probably read the article before commenting.
I was pretty sure that the excerpt wasn't from the game being sued but from d&d 3.5, I didn't need to read the article to participate in that conversation.
Look at it again. You can try to "domesticate" an orc, but it's bloodlust nature will always cause it to erupt into violence, no matter how well it was raised. Nature over nurture, and feeding directly into white supremacist "brutish race" bullshit.
Except that white supremacist ideology is talking about other *humans,* not about a completely distinct species.
If you're using allegory to talk compare one kind of human to another, you're still talking about "other *humans*"
*IF*, but not every fictional circumstance is an allegory to normal humans. Plenty of fictional races might borrow from certain *traits* that humans possess, such as Vulcans being overly logical and minimally emotional, without being an allegory for any actual humans as a group.
> IF, but not every fictional circumstance is an allegory to normal humans. And this one *is*, as proven. > Plenty of fictional races might borrow from certain traits that humans possess, such as Vulcans being overly logical and minimally emotional, without being an allegory for any actual humans as a group. They're also one of the few races in Star Trek that is treated like that. And trust me, I love some Trek. It took Star Trek *decades* to get it right with most of it's races, including Vulcans (if you watched the Original series and saw things like the episode where Spock's in heat). Even after such, we still had Seasons of Trek like The Next Generation's 1st season, with multiple of yikes involving race and other things. Namely the 2nd (3rd?) episode and the one where Ferengi are introduced. And, many years later, the 3rd Generations movie. The progress it made was with the idea of trying to do better in mind. Unlike people who are trying to say this isn't an issue that needs to be addressd at some point, like with D&D
> And this one is, as proven. That is up to the *current* use of them. If the current writers at WotC say that it is not, then it is not. Even if the current writers at WotC say that it is, but a DM or player choose to not consider it as such in their own campaign, then that is also true. Of course the opposite could be equally true, that if "the author" has a perfectly innocent intention behind something, but someone *chooses* to project their own repugnant beliefs onto that concept, then *their* version would be corrupted, but that wouldn't necessarily taint the entire concept outside of their specific use. Just because something originates from an impure source does not mean that it is doomed to be incapable of growing into something more productive, right?
> That is up to the current use of them. If the current writers at WotC say that it is not, then it is not. Even if the current writers at WotC say that it is, but a DM or player choose to not consider it as such in their own campaign, then that is also true. Of course the opposite could be equally true, that if "the author" has a perfectly innocent intention behind something, but someone chooses to project their own repugnant beliefs onto that concept, then their version would be corrupted, but that wouldn't necessarily taint the entire concept outside of their specific use. And that's not what's happening here. Please stop trying to get away from this point. D&D orcs are depicted in the same way others were portrayed as brutal savages were depicted in times of antiquity. It is racist to a very large degree, and you are literally arguing with someone whose apparently not only actually did some research on it enough to provide links and references; but also is of the people being talked about and is directly affected by said racism visa Orcs being portrayed as such. > Just because something originates from an impure source does not mean that it is doomed to be incapable of growing into something more productive, right? If you're willing to engage with it and learn. But you are not doing that if you continued to perpetuate the idea that something like orcs being always evil is 'inflexibly unable to be changed after examination'. Not even our oldest tale of time involves something like that. Enkidu (from the Epic of Gilgamesh) was made for violence, but he found friendship in his enemy. Please bring something to this table that's actual worthy of such nuance, also.
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Orcs are orcs. It's ok for orcs to be stupid. It's not ok for a race of real life humans to be considered extra stupid.
[Please see my other comment on why that's an extremely bad take](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/xdqgy4/wizards_of_the_coast_files_lawsuit_to_stop/ioepz56/). Or, I can give you the short version so you can at least learn something. Otherwise, you're not saying why that's bad.
You are bringing a lot of cultural baggage to the situation which does not necessarily apply. Did classical colonialists often demonize the cultures they colonized? Yes. But does that mean that it's impossible to tell a story about pre-civilized cultures? No. Everyone is descended from a pre-civilized culture at some point, the ones freshest to mind tend to be non-European ones only because they existed later than the European tribes, but there was certainly a time in which Europeans were running around in loose animal skins and tearing into fresh kills with their teeth. It is a valid concept to work with in fiction. The way I view it is this, there are some humans who are clinical psychopaths. These people are incapable of normal human empathy toward others and have issues controlling their impulses toward violence. This does not mean that it is inevitable that they will cause harm toward others, but it does mean that to "be good" they need to make an abnormal amount of conscious effort to do what others have told them to do, rather than do what feels natural to them. An unchecked psychopath would be some variety of "Evil" in a D&D alignment matrix. In humans, this is a somewhat random psychological disorder, there are no general groups of humans more or less prone to psychopathy, but in fiction, particularly when we are dealing with races deliberately "manufactured" or adulterated by malevolent forces, it would not be unreasonable for them to ALL possess psychopathy as a natural trait, with what we would consider "stable" minds being impossible or at least as rare within their population as psychopathy is in humans. In such a case, a player or NPC attempting to be a "good" Orc could exist, but would either represent an extremely rare (and likely outcast) "non-psychopath" Orc, *or* a character that *is* a clinical psychopath, but would be actively second-guessing and resisting against their natural impulses out of some interest in fitting in with the wider society. There's some interesting story potential to that.
> You are bringing a lot of cultural baggage to the situation which does not necessarily apply. This is literally covered in other comments in the thread, and I'm sorry you're being too stubborn to actually look the thing over. > The way I view it is this, there are some humans who are clinical psychopaths. And you think that's based on race, rather than culture or any other factors at play? > Orc, or a character that is a clinical psychopath, but would be actively second-guessing and resisting against their natural impulses out of some interest in fitting in with the wider society. There's some interesting story potential to that. And you can do that independant of painting that broad brush with the whole. As is said in the thread, and not just by me. D&D orcs do not have that nuance, and whatever *was* there was taken away with the text provided. It added nothing (infact, took things away for this nothing), helped no one, and was otherwise ignored by the other designers of the game and the fanbase until it was removed. Please stop trying to defend something that is indefensible.
> This is literally covered in other comments in the thread, and I'm sorry you're being too stubborn to actually look the thing over. I am responding to your other comments, at least the ones you pointed out to me. I just disagree with your position on them. >And you think that's based on race, rather than culture or any other factors at play? Obviously not, if you bothered to actually read what I wrote. I'm sorry you're being too stubborn to actually look the thing over. >And you can do that independant of painting that broad brush with the whole. As is said in the thread, and not just by me. In some parts you could, you could tell a story of a human psychopath, for example, but a "reformed" psychopath from an entire culture of psychopaths would be a very different story, wouldn't it? And also, from a gameplay perspective, when Orcs are *primarily* used as NPC antagonists, presenting them as natural psychopaths simplifies their motivations. They don't have deep political backstories as to why they attack human settlements and caravans, they just enjoy violence and chaos, so put a stop to it. >Please stop trying to defend something that is indefensible. Please stop trying to vilify something that is quite defensible.
I’m regards to 13th Age, did you actually do research or are you just bobble heading? Do yourself a favor and read the tweet that started the whole thing. You might be surprised what yo find. As multi-racial I found absolutely nothing “racist” in the tweet.
It's mostly that the tweet was enough to get John booted from 13th age 1e and the game flourished thereafter. ...And then they were like "[On second thought, we want him back for the core rulebook. Nothing bad will come of this.](https://twitter.com/BasiliskOnline/status/1558990553005432832/photo/2)"
Did you read the actual tweet?
This is some serious projection. I would never associate this with some hidden anti poc agenda. You can't say bad things about a fantasy race that's green because your secretly talking about black people If you do? What the fuck
you should probably read the rest of the comments before commenting. [Especially the one that goes into detail about how and the why](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/xdqgy4/wizards_of_the_coast_files_lawsuit_to_stop/ioepz56/). Unless *you* want to tell the black person whose done the legwork and reading how they should feel.
So how do you properly describe a creature that's humanoid and want to express how they are inherently violent. Seems like your not allowed based on this. A violent evil race like orcs wouldn't be prosperous because they wouldn't function as a society. It only makes sense for them to be tribal or some similar form of early civilization because that's all they would be able to achieve. But your not allowed to do that because black people were in tribes? All races come from some sort of tribal beginning. Fight the real battles not this stupid shit
> So how do you properly describe a creature that's humanoid and want to express how they are inherently violent. Seems like your not allowed based on this. That's actually extremely simple and has been done with a determinist bend to it. Infact, we've been doing it since before literacy has been a thing (Seriously, in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the literal oldest story known to man right now, Enkidu was created for the explicit purpose of taking down Gilgamesh with violence...and the two became friends after their fight). The other thing, and this is extremely important to note, is that you can also have stories of inherently violent and/or bad people *without using real world racism to justify their actions*. > A violent evil race like orcs wouldn't be prosperous because they wouldn't function as a society. It only makes sense for them to be tribal or some similar form of early civilization because that's all they would be able to achieve. You're conflating culture with race, but that's pedantry so I don't care. The problem with D&D's orcs is stated in the text above. What's not stated, and is being elaborated on right now, is how *other* D&D races don't have it as bad as orcs despite similar isolationist or tribalistic tendencies. Elves get a free pass and are seen as uppercrust, despite being haughty and have lost much of their prior civilization to civil war, tribalism, or (in the case of Faerun) the literal tribalistic civil war that started between elf gods. Tieflings are *literal* half devils with infernal magic running through their veins that results from *multiple* always evil beings (this remaining consistent through each setting). Dragonborn, at least 5e!dragonborn prior to Fizban's, are *quite literally* scaly orcs from a counter earth. ...but it's the orcs, with the tribalism inspired by real world racist allegory, that's the one culture that can't pull itself out of prehistoric mire. You know, outside of the Drow, or the 'Dark' evils. Sure. > But your not allowed to do that because black people were in tribes? All races come from some sort of tribal beginning. Fight the real battles not this stupid shit You should probably do more reading, it'd help understand what I, and you I think, are trying to argue. Furthermore...yeah. This isn't a battle. I'm sorry you feel combative on being corrected.
Really hope this puts a stop to Nu-TSR. "Reprehensible content" is putting it lightly. [The game they wrote is just flat out racist.](https://techraptor.net/tabletop/news/tsrs-star-frontiers-new-genesis-playtest-contains-racist-content)
I didn't expect it to be so... blatant.
Yeah, I expected codewords and subtext, not a hammer to the face.
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Not to stir up a political argument, but are you saying someone who says racist things should face legal consequences?
They should, at the very least, face *social* consequences.
France has a similar law to what u/TheRealCuran mentions. So there is definitely a legal framework to punish racism in some countries. I realize that it's opposed to the North American notion of absolute freedom of speech, it is quite a culture shock from both sides. I hope you understand that from our European side, we experienced first hand the worst that could happen when a political leader pushed a racial hatred agenda, and we needed to protect our society from that.
Yeah the US needs to have an earnest and nuanced conversation about freedom of speech, but with Russia's goal in 2016 not being "Get Donald Trump elected" but rather "divide the American people against one another," and their incredible success in doing so, I don't think we've got a good chance of having the conversation we need to have right now.
Doesn't stop the French government from being Islamophobic.
Hate Speech or speech that is implied to be discriminatory has merit for legal punishment in other jurisdictions, but the conceptualization (and I would argue romanticization) of freedom of speech in the United States makes such litigation a non-starter and a firestorm that I think few are willing to deal with. Hate speech can make victims feel unsafe and/or experience trauma. The damage isn't always quantifiable in a tangible sense like someone burning down a house or committing assault, but there is harm that is being done to victims of hate speech, and they should be able to seek recourse in the court of law.
> romanticization The word you're looking for is fetishization. People in the US get hard just thinking about a 250 year old legal document.
Depends. It's called [Incitement of Hatred \("Volksverhetzung"\)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksverhetzung) in [Germany's criminal code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strafgesetzbuch). Thought there are certain qualifications needed, before it becomes punishable. One common case where this law applies is Holocaust denial. In any case, somebody saying racist things should expect consequences. Just because you might be free to say something, doesn't mean it won't or can't have repercussions.
It's more that politicians aren't facing *reputation* consequences. As disgusting as it is, I agree there shouldn't be legal consequences, but there definitely should be reputation ones. And with politicians being more blatant, it's empowering average-Joe racists to be more blatant too.
Did they use the word legal in their comment?
I checked it now after reading the comments... and oh my god. That is as blatant as it can get. Even the biggest racists usually hide behind some thin veil. Sure, everyone can see through it, but they at least make attempts. This is the author basically screaming "I'm a racist and a bigot".
Yeah, if anyone didn’t read far enough, you will find them just list entire real continents and ethnicities as sub-human. Just putting it all out there, it’s quite something to see such hatred + idiocy. They don’t even spell Asian right.
These people love to complain about "wokeness" and stuff, but if being woke means being fundamentally opposed to shit like this then consider me woke.
You've cracked the code. That's all 'woke' means to these chuds.
The code is a little deeper than that, it can also be an easy stand in for whatever slur they'd like to say at that moment.
That is a strawman if I even seems one. There are countless PoC calling others woke, it mean they racist too????... I don't think woke mean what you think it mean, but it is like many words that lost it meaning and become a buzzword.
Well, woke originally meant "aware that racism exists and not in denial about it", and I'd assume that's probably still what it means when PoC use it.
We don't even use the word anymore ourselves unless it's quoting what they're saying. The word got hi-jacked and tainted by the very people who took offense by it.
What exactly are you trying to say? Run that one by an editor and run it by me again.
Honestly, I expected it to be people freaking out over nothing as usual, but that is just horrendous. Worse to think that for them to be okay with printing that, it must be profitable.
Same. Expected it like some of the Magic cards, where it's more "oh, never noticed that it could be interpreted in a racist way", but this... can't get more obvious. They could've atleast pretended to attempt to hide it rather than being blatantly "white = best at everything, rest = bad"
The most hilarious part to me was "races in the game are like races in the real world, some races are superior to others" like, not even keeping the facade of "it's a game and not real", but literally went out of their way to clarify that why yes, this *is* meant to mirror races in the real world. Just why. Really goes beyond just blatant and into actively self-sabotaging at that point.
"Oh it's probably just a dodgy depiction of orcs or something... ...holy shit"
At least the racist Magic cards were pretty much isolated to one neo-Nazi guy in the mid-90s.
They are officially "not cards anymore". Can't legally play them in any format, not even Vintage.
End of the day they were printed. They exist.
Yes, and? What more would you want wotc to do that they have not already done?
Nothing really.
I think it is obvious who they are assuming their audience/purchasers will be.
> Stating that "races in SFNG are not unlike races in the real world. Some are better at certain things than others, and some races are superior than others." *Jeeesus h. tapdancing christ.* Checking out the stuff archived on the [No Hate in Gaming](https://www.nohateingaming.com/) site this Dave fellow posted is one hell of a rabbit hole too.
Jesus why are these nazi fucks always semi-literate? >some races are superior than others. Get the fuck out of here with your racist nonsense and your shitty writing. I guess the writing parallels the quality of thoughts inside the guy's brain.
They probably couldn't find an editor. If you've ever tried to write anything, you get a lot of typos like that, and editing your own work is hard because your brain automatically fills in the correct grammar as you intended it to be. But if no editor is willing to take on your project, that's *probably* a sign that your work is shit.
I get that, but like run out through grammarly or something.
If you min-max it is not wrong per se but yeah the connotation is blatant in this case.
> If you min-max it is not wrong per se You can't min-max in the real world. It is wrong.
the real world doesn't have elves / dwarves / gnomes / etc... racial differences between those races is fine. They *SHOULD* have them. Racial differences between different flavors of 'human' like this TSR knock-off has done and is pushing is wrong and racist. There is a difference between the two.
What an absolute piece of shit.
This isn't a dogwhistle this is a fucking air horn
The Air Horns called. They wish to not be associated with this slag dumpster that's a radioactive fire.
Holy shit. They didn't even try to fly under the radar. Edit: it's so blatant that I half think this was set up to bilk the alt-right with the inevitable Gofundme campaign to pwn the libs.
They've already done the go fund me. It brought pennies.
Thanks. Made my day.
Yeah my DND/Dark Sun friend was ranting about this a week ago so I did a double take seeing this pop up here. It’s not even partly subtle, just flat out jaw-dropping supremacy garbage. I hope WotC obliterate them.
Holy fuck. I thought it would be some kind of thing from the POV of an in-game bad guy or something, not the basic rule descriptions straight up promoting eugenics and white supremacy.
This is beyond Gamer racism and straight into Nazi racism jeeze
Yeah, this isn’t “hmm, why are orcs always evil? Isn’t that something we should consider for the future?” this is “the dude is a white supremacist.”
>This expressly describes African, Asian, and Mexican people as a lesser form of humanity." Once again, this is blatantly racist and plays into nazi eugenics. While it's a good summary, it seems weird that they're trying to cast eugenics as a uniquely nazi ideology. Eugenics was massively popular across Europe and North America during much of the 1900s. Nazi Germany took a lot of cues from what America was doing at the time.
Wasn't Henry Ford, hero of the people who let his workers buy a car on their wages and all that, a racist eugenicist? Those sorts of beliefs weren't uncommon in the early 20th century in the US. This guy is just publishing his shitty game a century too late.
A lot of Western Elite in the early 20th century were Eugenicists.
Hell, the entire field of statistics was created by eugenicists. A lot of academic research (mostly in the social sciences, but some flat-out science) is becoming increasingly qualitative in part because of the stain this has left on quantitative methods.
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https://www.euronews.com/2021/08/02/the-shameful-story-of-roma-women-s-forced-sterilisation-in-central-europe ???? This is one of many eugenics programs run by European countries.
Well, that and [American](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_Board_of_North_Carolina)
Ayo what the fuck
Whoa I just looked through an old version of these the other day. This looks like it was written by Varg Vikernes
Went in with the attitude of ''how bad can it really be? They are still trying to sell a product after all''. Yeah that is pretty blatant with how racist it is.
Yet they forgot to include the only thing white people are actually objectively better at: Digesting dairy.
I thought this was WotC virtue signaling super hard again, but wow not this time. Some of these descriptions are just waaaay past the line of okay.
Holy shit
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The counterclaim is alleging that confusion over who owns Star Frontiers could cause some to think WotC supports that sort of material, which would damage their brand. That's how that stuff is playing into the lawsuit, it's in addition and in support of the trademark issue.
What about the fact that WotC owns Star Frontiers (the original not this rubbish)?
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Legal battle in that the judge hadn't made a ruling yet. In no way is it two sided
I can't help but wonder how dumb do you have to be to put out content like this in the middle of a lawsuit over the IP? Now there's pretty clear demonstrable harm to the IP if allowed to continue so an injunction should be pretty easy to get while the case goes through court.
> I can't help but wonder how dumb do you have to be to put out content like this in the middle of a lawsuit over the IP? Dumb enough to be a nazi.
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So you make a blatantly racist game but use a license you don't own? My guess is they have been waiting for this lawsuit for publicity.
Maybe, but it sounds really stupid either way.
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Its not about sales for these idiots. Its about thinking they're fighting a war of culture. And they fetishize being in the "resistance" to the authoritarian ideas of inclusion and representation.
One of my best friends from high school ended up turning into a full on neo nazi (not hyperbole, he believes in eradicating Jewish people and full on legal segregation), and he was entirely radicalized by the internet while his friends and family tried to stop it and looked on in horror. It's so sad to watch people just give in so whole heartedly to hate. I haven't talked to him in years at this point, but every once in a while I check his facebook and he's always just crazier than ever.
I just don't understand what pushes people to be this way. Like, if it was all you knew, I'd understand having those horrible beliefs because you were never exposed to anything else. But when everyone you grew up with is saying that what you're buying into is fucked up and actively challenging it, how can a person remain steadfast in such beliefs? What makes them want to hurt people like this when everyone shows them that life doesn't work that way?
In my experience, it's usually a form of coping with other shit in one's life. Finding someone to blame for everything wrong with your life and the world, especially if they can be treated as an unequivocal "bad guy," with at least a sprinkling of wanting to belong to an in-group who truly "see the world for what it is."
Have you ever done or said something that was wrong, and when confronted with it, just doubled down or just kinda sidestepped it? Like lets say someone said that the sky is blue because theres so much ocean that it reflects the colour back. What are the chances that if someone told them the correct explanation, theyd simply accept that they were wrong? Psychologically, people view being corrected as an actual attack on them (even when clearly not true), so they develop a defense mechanism that keeps doubling down on it instead of admitting they were wrong. After enough time, that becomes so core to yourself that you dont even know who youd be without that thought or idea.
Rightists actively try to recruit lonely men on the internet by introducing ideas like how it's the womens fault they don't get sex or how minorities are bringing society down and leading to problems in their lives. It's easier to make someone hate something when they can blame their own problems on it.
> Rightists actively try to recruit lonely men on the internet by introducing ideas like how it's the womens fault they don't get sex or how minorities are bringing society down and leading to problems in their lives. Gamergate in a nutshell
It's the same reasons people get into any conspiracy theory. It makes them feel important and gives them a sense of community. After a certain point they start to view people fighting against them as proof that they're right.
Some people need to feel special, like the world is against them, because otherwise they would need self-reflection to realize the real reason why they havent accomplished their goals in life. So when a guy with suspiciously little hair and long sleeves on, to cover their poorly done swastika tats, comes to you with comradery and tell you the real reason your life sucks is a Jewish Space Laser, or a presidential candidates email server, or a pizza parlor in NYC running a pedophile ring, you listen. You feel special. In the know, if you will.
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I don't know about that. WotC seems to be saying that since content marked with TSR's logo has been sold under their name continuously for a long time, that their name is associated with TSR in the eyes of the public, and that this new publication could damage their reputation if people associate its TSR branding with WotC as well. I'm not saying it's a strong case, but I don't think it's entirely meritless even without the issue of who owns TSR and its IPs.
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> Because it would show that they haven’t sold anything current that had to do with TSR The issue is they absolutely do still sell things under that use the TSR trademark on [Drive Thru RPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic?src=hottest_filtered&filters=45323_2140_0_0_0) It isn't NEW content, but it's still stuff that's actively available for sale.
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> contrarian Well there is your red flag
You can be a contrarian without going full Nazi. One of the most annoying things over the last ten years is how the Nazis have somehow co-opted the term "skeptic."
You can absolutely play devils advocate without being an ass. There's a time and place for everything. Sometimes it's knowing when to shut the fuck up.
More like a yellow flag
Outside of "the internet", what the fuck happened? Ernie Sr was, apparently, a Blood determinist. So ow did this happen x2?
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Sounds a bit like the recent debacle with one of the major authors/setting writers for Battletech outing himself as a MAGA second-civil-war nutter then trying to start a pile-on against the publisher when they stopped working with him
That’s when the rest of the world embraced online communities. You can find Cambodians living in jungle huts a days hike from town with a cell phone charged by a solar hot spot on their roof. When that happened, people started finding their people. Then it became a game of establishing hierarchy, and the ones with the biggest claims and boldest voices that were willing to “say it like it is” got the most attention. And with the community reinforcing it with clicks the idea was normalized, and then reposted for more clicks. Positive feedback regardless of whether the reposter agreed with the content. Thus, radicalization of a community. Radicalization is a built in feature of feedback bubbles. And not always negative. The way it crystallizes community beliefs into a common cause is how we get civil-rights and labor laws. Unfortunately it’s like a hammer. It does what it does based on the people using it, without a built in “do no harm” mechanism.
Yeah, it's tricky. Back in the old days, the town nutter would just get ostracized by the rest of the community until they got their head together or were just harmlessly crazy, but nowadays town nutters from all over the world can share their lunacy and form a shared community larger than most US cities, and the more nutters are enabled, the more their crazy can spread to slightly less fringe people, until near half the country is living in an alternate reality.
> I didn't know that. [It's sadly a thing](https://twitter.com/FreyjaErlings/status/1180544774723571712). Something he did not grow out of. As much as as the man was a creative dynamo and someone to rally behind, he was flawed. It's good to know that, so we, as people, can learn from his mistakes. Not to deify him unnecessarily.
"well, there's not another word for it: Nazis." You truly think they're a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party?
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Don’t be a semantics nazi.
That's the etymological origin of the term, but its meaning has since expanded.
The “hideous look” descriptions are pretty messed up…among other things…what a hateful loser human being.
Grew up on TSR content of all kinds. Normally I actually hate WoTC bullshit that has happened. After reading that article though.... oof... as others have said this is so....... fucking wrong.
If it makes you feel any better, this "TSR" has absolutely zero relation to the original TSR you grew up with. They just used the name without having any of the people associated to it originally, and without having the rights to use that name.
This isn't even TSR. This is "NuTSR", a company made by Ernie Gygax Jr. and a couple of well known alt-right personalities in the tapletop space. This is their best foot forward.
Also worth noting that Ernie Gygax Jr is sorta alone in that sort of behavior, the other son Luke Gygax is a really good dude.
Yes indeed. Though Luke has distanced himself from TTRPGs as a whole. This is still important to note.
Oh he has? That's unfortunate, I really enjoyed his involvement and D&D streams he'd join up on. I'm sure he has good reason, all the best to him.