Wizards recently announced that they are changing some of the evil races to be more sensitive to global racial oppression.

They specifically mention that orcs and dark elves are portrayed particularly negatively.

I'm curious if those changes will make it into BG3. I don't know many details regarding what Wizards has announced (just that it involves dark elves and orcs), but I'm simultaneously excited to see what they come up with, and also slightly worried that it might impact Larian's release.

I've heard that Wizards has very particular quality standards, so I could understand if some adjustments need to be made.

Remember that if you look at an always chaotic Evil Orc Pillager and think "That reminds me of a racial minority" then this is on you.

Drow are confirmed as a playable race and drow culture has a clear and specific identity. Trying to change it would upend years of world setting, lore and history. They are people, true, but they are evil people.

This accellorated things, but a lot of this stuff was in motion before 2020 happened, after they got critized for stuff like CoS and ToA.

And Jeremy Crawford mentioned that the Gnolls in like the NM should have been fiends, with a seperate Gnoll humaniod race. So I think somewhere Gnolls PC race is coming.

4e solved the problem with gnolls.

and crawford is a hack, hes worse than mearls when it comes to the direction fo dnd

It's pretty obvious that they already have, with Goblins being the first example. The cult of the absolute will be a big part of that along withBG itself. We got a hint of BGs openness to "monster" races in the Gazetteer in BG: DiA (with deep gnomes and lizardfolk being examples).

are deep gnomes a monster race?
Derros are but Deep gnomes are just another Gnome subrace IIRC.
Duergar i guess are a "Monster" race but they had player stats for a while now

The problem with DnD isn't so much that certain races are "evil", it's more that the whole thing evolved as a very simple heroic fantasy setting. Almost every race or monster started out as a simple stereotype, either derived from historical mythology or culled from literary works.

I'm sure some of the DnD authors over time have been influenced to some degree by both conscious and unconscious bias in their writings and inventions, but I'm sure most of the perceived issues are simply due to relying overmuch on the eternal fantasy dichotomies good/evil, law/chaos, civilized/primitive.

Most attempts to relate DnD races to the Human population of the earth don't really stand up. The Drow, for example, have dark skin, but in a different palette to any tropically-attuned humans, pale hair, but in a different palette to any temperate-attuned humans, and facial features that are generally similar to Europeans. It's not clear who it might be insulting to depict such a race as evil.

It would be a shame if all DnD fantasy societies, of all races, end up feeling the same, rather than each society, of any race, being based solely on it's history, geography and current political circumstances.

This is a ridiculous subject. These are not real races, thus cannot be subject to the label "minority group". There is no ethics, no rights, nor any reason to even consider equality or representation of fictive/imaginative "races". It's like people invent issues for the sake and of complaining.

Fact is, this is a digital interpretation of a ruleset. At best you are trying to argue equality of bits and bytes represented by pixels.

If people actually identify on a deep personal level with the character, to such an extent it's a problem with out certain demographic representation, then the people in said group probably shouldn't be playing the game in the first place.

"We" are not trying to argue for anything. WoTC have been moving their content in this direction for quite a while, and have stated some of their reasons for doing so. Every new or refreshed piece of 5e content is examined to see if it draws on, or was influenced by, present or past bigotry. Some of it is.

BG3 as a 5e product is also included in this scrutiny.

How the f*@! do you look at ANYTHING in D&D and be like "hmm, yes, this part is based on bigotry, myes". last I checked there is a human race in D&D so if anyone finds an issue with a fictional race and how they are portrayed in a fictional world then they need to go rethink their entire life. If you see ANY similarities between fictional races, like drow or orcs, and any RL group...YOU are creating those similarities and seeing connection where there are none. In all the D&D groups I've played in, no one has EVER even hinted at a connection between any RL minority group and any race in D&D.

Exactly. SJW's are going rampant with their PC to the point where even imaginary worlds with imaginary rules are problematic.
I truly hope that Larian will refrain from force-feeding the player with PC and/or identity political quests / biographies / plots etc.
If not, i will probably not be playing the game for long. I mean, playing games is a means to have fun and escape IRL for brief moments.
Introducing mass hysteria into the game kinda breaks that notion.

Even ignoring implication of attaching traits to 'evil', traits that have been used to stereotype minorities in real life, making whole races evil 'because gods said so' (whether that's setting or writing gods) is just lazy writing to have faceless mooks to slaughter. Your group is itching for some combat? Just throw some orcs their way. At least now you don't have to write whole essays justifying yourself to your DM if you want to play one of those races as non-evil alignment.

And you can still play those races that way at your table if you want to. Sure, the opposite could've been done as well in the opposite case, but it's nice to see the people being paid for it actually doing the more labour intensive version.

I do not know if it´s really that surreal and unrealistic.

I mean, the entire Inca´s religious beliefs were based on human sacrifices of the lower caste. They even have the Capacocha, where even noble families sacrifice his children because they were the best and pure.

The Karankawa and the Aztecs were known to practice cannibalism: warriors would eat a strip of flesh from enemies they had slain in combat. That was a symbol of status.

Nazi´s dream was the glorification of the pure Arian race and purge the other races and minorities. With gas chambers. In bulk.

The millenary Indian "Thug" cult trained his family members to practice the Tuggee: Strangling people for money. They even adopted the children of his victims so they became thugs.

It´s not so strange the existence of entire civilizations that has "evil" practices that are tolerated and even encouraged by their society or social group in the real world.
It would be weird if there is not in a fantasy world.

You do not even have to search much about their motivations: The ethical and moral values of their society are what could be considered "Evil" by the standards of most other communities.

Is it?
I dont think so.

I think its easier to write a heroic narrative that way. Its easier to bring analgoies to the table iwthout having to revolve the entire cmapaign around it. Is that neccesarily a bad thing? I dont think so. Much like Sci fi, fatnasy is in the universe of "what ifs".
That includes objective morality. Which in turn gives you some rather unique storytelling potentials that modern fantasy writers sadly seem to forget about.

The idea that Orcs are just walking XP is somehow sitll thrown around despite beeing wrong for 3 editions now. I mean it all started out with spelljammer and the Scro, but even "Evil" orcs have plenty of nuance now.
Mindflayers are the next thing. They are Evil,c apital E. Theres no of that moral "nuance" there, but you dont need to.

Imagine Mind flayers were not evil. Would that improve the stories you can tell with mindflayers?
or would it actually detract from their terror?



But here comes the most important point:

One has to realize that the non Human races of DnD arent supposed to represent Humans.
If you want a complex war with another nation, you discribe Humans fighting Humans.

If you want to use a Humanoid enemy you can fight with weapons to symbolize a terrifying external threat. You use orcs.


For some reason Game of Thrones is ofthen cited as an example of fantasy dealing with "grey moraliy", when thats complete nonsense. But game of tThrones is a great example of how to use "always chaotic evil".
The white walker sin game of thrones ar ethat. Enemy of all life.

Does that make them lazy?
Or racist?
No. They are an analogy. The white walkers are an analogy for Climate Change.
The Threat of the white walkers is there to make a point about the Human rulers not working together and not beeing able to face the threat.

Only fighting Climate change with Swords and arrows makes for a supremeley better book than fighting it with lessening carbon emissions.


Do you understand where im getting here?
The Orcs are Evil because the Orcs do not represent Humans. The Orcs represent a savage existential threat and the fear of Savagery overcoming civility in Human minds.
They are the shadow on the wall of the primeval cave. Not neccesarily orcs but all kinds of Eivl creatures.

Correct, but it's more general than that. It's the fear of "the other". If someone/something is not attuned to the way you do things, then it's wrong, or inferior, or evil.

It is always easy to demonise "the other" in any society, you just need to find the right lever, be that political, religious, nationalist, racial...the list of ways you can divide a society into "us" and "them" is quite extensive.

So long as "us" is the group in control of a society, such division can work both when "us" is a minority, which leads to elitist fear of "the other", and when "us" is a majority, which leads to oppressive fear.

Most of us ( and I include myself ) have acquired subconscious bias as a consequence of growing up in our societies; our families, friends, the news media, politicians, religious leaders and so on, all influence us to a particular worldview.

I have no problem myself with fantasy races being identified as the primeval fear of civilised society, or the embodiment of evil / chaos etc, but would not want it to be achieved by portraying them using characteristic traits of existing human groupings.

i wouldnt say they neccesarily only represent the other.
They can represent pretty much whatever.
They represent an outside threat, whatever that may be. THey could represent the financial crisis if you write the story that way...

I'm just going to ignore these particular examples, since I just don't know enough about these cultures, but...


Here is the issue, bad/evil system doesn't make all the people living under it evil. Yes, the leaders are unquestionably dreadful, and the system they've built is equally so, but people who have grown up under it, or were swept up because they already lived in the areas are not necessarily. Through many tactics they can be driven into complacency, apathy, or support (whether that's through dehumanisation of the opponents, weaponising nostalgia or other ways, I'm not going to be summing up Ur-Fascism here), but that doesn't make them evil. It's why the goal against them wasn't to kill them all, but to dismantle the state and show the people living under it that it's not the only way.

This is opposed to always-evil races, where you have the, annoyingly common situation of 'will you kill the orc baby because you know it will grow up to be violent and dangerous regardless of where they grow up'.


The Drow are much closer to what you describe as an evil society, however, I have an issue even with that, because I have a hard time seeing a society built on making everyone as miserable as possible survive long term without frequent revolutions, without everyone being inherently evil and predisposed to violence.


I mean, I haven't done extensive opinion research, but I don't think you are going to find many people claiming that the undead invasion part of the Song of Ice and Fire is the most interesting part of the series.

Problem with this analogy however is, that unlike the always evil races of Dungeons and Dragons, the rank and file of the undead army in ASoIaF aren't sentient, no idea about their leader person, I haven't seen the series. So they are less evil people, and more force of nature that has shape of people.

Meanwhile, orcs are sentient, but evil for reasons (and in case of DnD, less intelligent for reasons that smell of eugenics)

...not to mention imagining you can defeat climate change with swords is so unhelpful I can't even begin putting it in words.



You can say that, but in most cases they are not written that way, they might not be literally human, but they are human-like, highlight parts of human behaviour that is arbitrarily assigned to other exaggerated human traits, and my favourite (/s), fantasy racism often manifests much like real world racism, except the receiver being evil gives a 'justification' for it. I'm not saying that these problems have been written in out of malice, or are intentional, rather, they exist because of cultures and systems we live in
Media is influenced by real world sentiments, and real world sentiments influence media. It's not going to turn a friendly kid into a horrific racist, and it's very much not intended to in most cases, but there are subtle effects on reinforcing stereotypes and uncomfortable behaviours, despite it not being 1 to 1 comparison in most cases.

And even the OG, Tolkien, eventually grew to regret how he wrote the orcs.

In any case, I doubt I am going to convince you, and I'm not one you should ask about these things, I'm just some weirdo on the internet who has acquired an interest in effects of culture on media and vice versa in recent years. You would get a much better account of how one affects another, from someone who actively studies this, preferably who has been directly affected too.

...I'm just going to hit post in hopes that this ramble is at least somewhat coherent.

Edit:
I'm going to borrow words from the one who wrote the one who came up with Drizzt...
"In fantasy, you embody evil in a race, and then you disembody it with your sword, and that’s also what mankind has done through the centuries, right? By dehumanizing the enemy so you don’t feel bad about killing them. But that’s just blatantly immoral when you get right down to it, and yet I love fantasy. So that’s the paradox I had to deal with."

Just because I love drow...There is a government-like body made up of the matron mothers of the top 9 houses of the city. They meet to ensure the needs of the overall city are met; economic, safety, etc. There are revolutions, constantly, where houses quietly destroy other houses to improve their ranking in the city. It is a controlled kind of chaos but all attacks and actions are directed by Lolth, who clearly loves chaos but also wants/needs her drow to survive to continue worshiping her. So there is enough order to keep individuals and houses in-line enough to ensure survival...while chaos is the underlying belly of the beast. Since R.A. Salvatore's books are considered lore, drow are not born inherently evil or predisposed to violence but children are raised by females and that is the issue if you know anything about drow society in Faerun.

You realize that the "Undead invsaion" isnt meant to be the super existing bit about game of thrones right?
The entire point is that the "Undead invasion" sets the plot in motion.

Its about the Humans not cooperating. The undead invasion is the background threat.

Simmilar to how the Orcs are the big threat in LOTR.
They are not the players nt he field of poltiics and diplomacy, they are the natural desaster about to strike.

By your logic you cannot use any humanoid creature as a stand in for evil to create a better story.
well to that i say NO

>the creator of drizzt
Well yeah, he clearly knows what hes talking about. Drizzt is the modern hamlet.

If someones prime achievement is ruining the "good dark elf" trope forever, then im not gonna take his advice on how to write evil races seriously.

He doesn't need to be a genius writer to notice a general trend. I mostly used the quote because it neatly summarised what I was trying to say.



Problem is not with human-like characters being evil, problem is with them being evil by nature rather than by choice/nurture.

Let's hope Larian doesn't go too far into this. Evil creatures need to be evil, they don't need to be sensitive bad people. A band of orcs is not a band of angry pussies. They will kill without remorse and they will rape without caring about their actions. These are the very principles of evil. Of course, they can still erase evil altogether, with only 6 options: LG LN NG N CG CN. Because you know, evil doesn't exist in imaginary worlds, only nazis and far right white men are evil...

As stated before, the Actecs, Incas, Celts, Karankawa, the Huns, the Mongols... even the Vikings or the Roman empire (Wich was built on conquest, pillage and slavery, but they were very good at assimilating cultures, public works and bureaucracy) beg to differ.
They simply focus their violence on other cultures or countries or slaves so those empires last for a long time.

You have a hard time believe it because you simply disregarded the examples of long-lasting societies that uphold behaviour that is considered "evil" in modern standards, as you said before.
And of course, there are people inside a society that do not comply to the standards, but the majority do not see it as awful because it´s not bad behaviour in his society to treat slaves or minorities as possessions, easily discarded, for example.

And if that happened in the real world in ancient times, why not in a (more or less) medieval fantasy setting?

Also, I agree with the notion of Orcs, White walkers, and other humanoid creatures being a metaphor about the beast vs the man, chaos vs civilization, etc more than creatures themselves so the ones you found are inherently evil because they depict an idea, not a race or a society.

Of course, there´s always the narrative that uses a particular individual that goes against the tenants of his evil society and represents the triumph of individualism and free will; that´s a good trope too. Plenty of characters use that.

Hoping Larian has been given artistic freedom of the "Woketards" of the Coast not to ham-fist insert immersion breaking present day politics into the game. If companions are based around feminist tropes like Amiri and Valerie (both oppressed by the patriarchy and subverted expectations forced upon them) in Pathfinder: Kingmaker licensed from Paizo, my love-affair with Larian would be diminished.


I find your bias for "human-like" creatures to be problematic. Is humanoid shape a prerequisite for being worthy of the kind of moral nuance, consideration and supremacy you ascribe to humans? Isn't the next cause therefore, when you realize the slippery slope you're created for yourself, to purge every conceivable offence, to make every race and everything bland as Communism, squashing true diversity?

Sounds to me you're making it a problem cause your ideology tells you so, and frankly, probably just as much because it makes you feel good to smite others with the powers granted by said ideology haha. Narcissism role-playing as virtue is the biggest LARPG-scene ever! The gist of the matter is that you find orcs and what not, to be an analogy for black/colored people which in turn is synonymous with being oppressed/without agency and in need of protection. To my mind this is a kind of *incredibly* patronizing and racist thinking you would almost have to consider yourself an enlightened, morally superior, "anti"-racist to conceptualize.

I´m sure the idea of nature vs nurture was discussed by philosophers for centuries since the helenos greek polis, far before the works of Marx and Engels.

That said, even if I disagree with @Valerie, I think you are seeing the ghost of communism here because there´s nothing that screams communism in what the user Valerie said. Sounds like you are trying to bring a discussion about politics from elsewhere to this thread where we´re discussing other things.

Why can't a fictional race be evil by nature? and why can't it be evil by nature without people complaining about some fake link to a RL minority?

you probably ought to play more of kingmaker.
i actually dont think Amiri or valeria are particular bad.
Amiri obviously carries a grudge, but shes also a paizo character. you can also tell her to stfu.

Valeria also gets (unless you cheese it hard) bitchslapt by her former mentor and eventually develops a bit of a better perception of things after getting the scar.
the only thing in that regard pathfinder has is the whole threesome relationship thing, but its not like that isnt shown to not work out at all when you meet the characters.
So eh.

I know a lot of people like to shit on owlcats characters, but most "flaws" these characters have are not meant to be endorsements, they are meant to be flaws, which is what makes characters interresting and non static

They are meant to normalize mental illnesses, and break the notion of the traditional family. This is not a new concept. Just repeat the same message until it eventually becomes the "truth".

and then theres the option to not do that in the game.

...using the word ignore was a mistake in my previous post, let's pretend I didn't.

The problem with using those societies as LOOK AT THEM, THEY WERE EVIL is that we have few to none primary sources on those. It's why I decided to focus on the Nazis in my previous post. From all of those, knowing most about vikings, let's look at those a bit (but only a little bit, since my actual knowledge is very surface level)
Most accounts of these societies we have are from opposing cultures who had everything to gain from villainising them. English for Vikings, Romans for Celts, Chinese for Mongols, Spaniards for the South American societies. As for vikings, calling it a 'viking culture' is a misnomer, since viking was a thing to do, a job. Most old Danes, Norse, Swedes, etc. were mostly farmers and traders, much like other cultures of their time in Europe. Viking was happening because they were trying to find a better place to live, since the Scandinavian peninsula is not the most hospitable place to live.

But because unlike the English and the French, they didn't keep a whole lot of written records, the modern perception of them is twisted, since the English and the French did keep records, encountered all 3 groups of the Scandinavian societies (vikings/raiders, traders, farmers), and because they really did not want them there, mostly focused on the 'violent brutes' part when talking about them, to justify fighting to drive them away. So ultimately, I pretty much disagree with the notion that there were 'evil' (evil is such a loaded word too) societies. Societies with some harmful traditions, habits, or bad leaders? Definitely. Most societies fall under that. But none of them were evil.

Same (or close enough) applies to the other societies you mentioned.

Well, except for Romans, but outside of their imperialist desires, and occasional nutty ceasar, I don't see why are you calling them evil.

Pretty sure I never called them evil societies even once (Feel free to find a quote where I said so) It´s you the only one that said that I do.

I always said that they condone behaviours that are considered evil in most societies in modern times. Those societies are the product of their times like our societies are the product of the era we are living in.

And there are plenty of historical recounts and archaeological findings that prove the existence of State-condoned human sacrifices, ritual cannibalism, slavery and many more practices that are considered taboo in modern times.


That said, apply modern morals to a fantasy medieval word is pointless. I expect people in Faerun behave more like renaissance people and less than Modern millennials or car salesman, for example.

I think that we as the player will get to determine how evil we want to be in the game. Our choice of race and background might give us more options in how we approach a situation but one of the joys of mortality is free will, we choose what we want to do. Obviously we might be 'encouraged' by our new best friend the tadpole but it's ultimately up to us how evil we want to be and whether we want to justify it to ourselves or anyone else.

Fair enough, I suppose I assumed because that's what the topic is supposedly about.


Only fault I can really find with this is when the fantasy setting forgoes the more nuanced take and goes straight for the 'these things make the society as a whole evil' (or rather, they do these because they are evil), orcs are not written as raiders because they've been driven to the harsh edges of society and they have families to feed, but because they are violent savages, drow (and others) are not slavers because the ruling class is unwilling to compensate their own to work the fields and would rather enslave others for cheap/free labour, but because we need them to be evil, and how to easier to show that than, oh yeah, slavery. (yeah, these have been come up with in 5 seconds, I'm sure and actual writer could do better).

And while yes, there has been added nuance to those, the legacy of it is still alive, and WotC are trying to have a look at it and a think about it. I am curious what will come of it.



They are not really medieval people in most fantasy though. Like, I'm sure there is fantasy that's very gritty and medieval-but-magic, but most high fantasy is just modern people's wouldn't-it-be-cool-if, settings that resemble those times, but have been twisted by popular perception. And the criticism of glorification of harmful stereotypes and behaviour can very much be applied to the latter.

sneaky you, removing and rewriting the post after I started to reply xP

I specifically used human-like instead of humanoid to refer to behaviours, because vast majority of fiction writes their non-humans as humans in rubber suits, maybe with a specific behavioural hat on. Because most fiction writers are not writing about actually alien beings, but ones that are used as a stand-in for parts human condition, used in an exaggerated way.


Amusingly, enough, their overblown reaction did not land far from my actual political leanings, I'm the worst stereotype of my kind.

although I'm sure they know little to nothing of what those beliefs actually contain

Not to get into real world politics or religion, because this is a fantasy game. But when Tolkien portrayed Orcs, they weren't about beasts vs humans. Nor were they some underhanded attempt to be racist about about non white ethnicities. Tolkien based Orcs and Goblins on fallen Angels and Demons, and his Elves on Angels of God. That's why they were portrayed as so evil, and Elves as so good.

I think @sordak @dethridge @nyanko are right. This is stupid decision on WotC's part. Orcs are not real. Drow are not real. They are not fictionalized representations of real peoples. This decision creates more problems that it solves and it solves nothing.

It would have better by far to say in the past some artwork has suggested links between these imaginary races and real world peoples and WotC will ensure that no artwork make this mistake again.

And to be clear, I am writing from a left perspective. I would never use a word like 'woketard'. This is a decision so bad that it alienate D&D fans left right and center.

This. Tolkein had the same view of evil that Augustine did. Evil is the corruption of the good. And evil is a real supernatural force that alters one's (very real) immoral soul. People who think that is view is too simple are really saying they disagree with this theological pov.

It's a game. You pretend to take on a moral code that is different from one you hold in real life . . . You can think Tolkein in wrong and still play a lawful good paladin.

This. And while you are coming "from a left perspective", I am coming from a "right perspective". Firm handshake.

Elves in Tolkien have nothing to do with angels. The Wizards are angels, Sauron is a fallen angel. And I don’t mean inspired by angels. The Judeo-Christian God exists in Tolkien, though is only just barely mentioned outside of the Silmarillion. So Gandalf is an actual angel of God and Sauron is a lieutenant to Satan.

Tolkien’s elves are personifications of the highest human qualities.

“The Elves represent, as it were, the artistic, aesthetic, and purely scientific aspects of the Humane nature raised to a higher level than is actually seen in Men.” -Tolkien, letter 181

So if orcs represent a subversion, it would be of that. Not angels.

Interestingly enough, Tolkien himself agonized about the very subject matter of this topic. He went through several iterations of an origin for the orcs, trying to decide if they had free will, if they could be Saved (Tolkien was very Catholic after all) and what it meant for a race to be evil. Tolkien, though certainly subject to all of the implicit racial biases of the culture and time he grew up in, was profoundly against Nazi ideology and only denounced racial pseudoscientific theories.

So, it’s a complex issue. I think it is worth it for WotC to look into their lore and re-examine the validity of some of their tropes. Goblins, Orcs, Gnolls, Drow and the like don’t need to be inherently evil. In fact, the FR setting is arguably more compelling if they aren’t. So why keep them that way?

There will still be evil monsters to fight; plenty of illithids, lichs, beholders, and demons. But for more mundane, non-eldritch entities, we can have good and bad goblins the same way we have good and bad people.

Only it isnt.
Tolkien is afterall not the final arbiter of fantasy and while his personal cahtolic leanings certainly remind me of modern ideological leanings which are basically just as religious, what we need to understand is that some things are created with one purpose or another.

Tolkien was a christian, christians did afterall try to convert imaginary dog headed people in india.

That doesnt mean that you cannot have any dehumanized Evil Races that specifically are a stand in of a NON EMPHATIC threat.
They could stand for a natural desaster or they could, much like the Orcs in LOTR in many ways did, stand for an ideology, rather than the people belieivng in the ideology.

TL;DR while youre correct, youre also not making much of a point in the debate to be had.

WOTC arent very christian are they. And by their own religion, they are just, ironically, pushing negative stereotypes from fantasy races unto minorities.
By the logic that "If theres a negative stereotype associated with a fantasy race that also was at some point attributed to a human ethnic group, those two things must be connected"
That of course is bullshit.

But thats where this entire debate stems from and why i think WOTC approach is not only wrongheaded but actually wrong by their own standards.

Okay, that was a bit all over the place. I’m not sure why you think I’m suggesting Tolkien was an arbiter of what fantasy should be. I was saying that if the creator of fantasy orcs was himself wrestling with the idea and the implications of an evil race, WotC are not out of bounds asking the same questions.

Your whole premise is a bit of a red hearing. Orcs and Drow in Forgotten Realms lore are not metaphors for some existential threat and they never have been. They originally were just mooks in the monster manual to be killed. The setting is more complex now. WotC, looking back, have decided that the way they described these races as “monstrous and evil” is reminiscent of the way real life ethnic groups were dehumanized. That isn’t pushing any negative stereotypes on anybody. It is WotC realizing a parity in their IP with something they don’t want to be associated with. Your objections all seem to me a great big ado about nothing.

thats not what a red herring is.
>they were mooks in the monster manual to be killed
and what do you think that is?
DnD was siginificantly less "serious" than other fantasy settings of its time, but gary gygax took his alignment systen seriously.
Yes, they were meatn to be evil.
Wether or not they were meant to be evil to be walking speedbumps (not XP, thats not how old games used to work) is irrelevant to the question.

And for your argument of WOTC "evolving" the concept. Well then see it as two competing arguments.
WOTCs argument reduces orcs to another form of Human, which the setting has plenty of. My argument elevates them to a better storytelling tool.

Also my argument comes from a place of someone who likes telling stories within the genre, WOTCs move comes out of fear of beeing labled Evil by the California crowd.

A red herring (which I see I misspelled) fallacy is:

diverting attention from the real issue by focusing instead on an issue having only a surface relevance to the first. It can be intentional or unintentional.

So I would definitely label the lateral maneuver to having a side conversation about the validity of evil races as a metaphor for non-human threats a red herring, as that is not relevant to the topic at hand.

>Wether or not they were meant to be evil to be walking speedbumps (not XP, thats not how old games used to work) is irrelevant to the question.

Yes, that is irrelevant. I’m not sure why you are making that point, because I certainly didn’t. I said that they were mooks to demonstrate that they weren’t metaphors.

Yes, Orcs and Drow were originally designed to be evil. I don’t understand what your point is there. The setting already has evolved. Orcs and Drow are now playable races, and can be any alignment. This isn’t new. The new policy is a continuation of the trajectory which WotC was already on. There will still be evil Orcs, but there could also be communities of neutral Orcs living as pastoral herdsmen away from civilization. There will still be evil Drow. I’m pretty sure Lolth will be as cruel as she ever was and that the places where she reigns will be as inhospitable as ever. Now, however, there will be more nuance in how the inhabitants of these communities are characterized. I don’t see the controversy here.

Do you play Dungeons & Dragons with lots of people in the “California crowd?” If you do, a good story teller often adapts their story for their audience. If you don’t, what makes you suspect they would even know or care about what you put into your campaigns?

Again, much ado about nothing.

Races with nuance, are more interesting than being 100% one alignment or the other. Drizzt was already not Chaotic Evil, so there has been precedence within the Drow for a start.

Not sure what the fuss is about, things change and if anyone wants to run D&D campaigns with purely evil Drow or Orcs then nothing stops them, but now GM‘s have more options (which one could argue they had anyway if they so chose to, it’s just players have to rethink what their initial reactions are and that’s for me a good thing).

Ah Fallacy Man.
well fallacy fallacy. You seeing a logical fallacy where there is none because beeing on the internet has trained you to look for them has no bearing on the actual argument.

So you lable the point of the entire argument a red herring?
well mabye youre just having a different argumen from the rest of us alltogehter, congratulations.

Youre misrepresenting my argument by claiming they are metaphors, a metaphor and a stand in is something different.
a metaphor is something you use to explain something, a stand in is something you use to make an otherwise boring story more interresting or compelling.

Hence why a race of EVIL people makes for a more compelling case to play a paladin.
and no, "nuance" is not an argment here, not everyhting is improved by bringing moral relativism into it.
The "Goblin babies" dilemma has been played out a few too many times for it to still be interresting. To the point that id argue that Goblin slayers no nonsense approach to it is the most novel way of dealing with it weve had in years.

youre also missing the point about Orcs and Drow. Its no longer a deviation if its the norm isnt it?
Yes, good drow and good orcs have existed in the lore.
Which is exactly why this move by WOTC is irrelevant. They already were there but they were so in a way that was integrated into the world, rather thanone that was made to make an in real life point.

Agian im wondering if youre just projecting here. You appear to be diverting hard.

Not to mention you making nonsense arguments. Where are we? How about you read the thread title. or the URL of the website youre on.
On my table, i can decide what Drow and Orcs are (and especialy i can have them not exist). In baldurs gate 3 i dont get to make that choice. Im at the mercy of a few hacks like mearls and crawford to not force a passionate developer to accept their california drivel.

Much ado about nothing?
I dont know, if its nothing, why are you even here.

Actually, I spend very little time on the internet. I've never been to Twitter or Reddit. I learned about logical fallacies mostly in my undergrad.

Now if the conversation is about whether you should have inherently evil races in the FR lore, and you respond with:

"That doesnt mean that you cannot have any dehumanized Evil Races that specifically are a stand in of a NON EMPHATIC threat."

Then I am sorry, but this is an absolute red herring fallacy. Orcs and Drow are not personified Climate Change or symbols for anything. Therefore, this statement is an abstraction that does not have relevance to the issue being discussed. That is not me having a different argument than you, that is me pointing out specifically where your argument has little bearing. If you don't like that assessment, you could try and mount a counter argument instead of stomping your feet and making a stink out of it. I'd be happy to hear it.

Your distinction between stand in and metaphor is nonsense. A metaphor is language used symbolically, which is to say, standing in for something else. You yourself said that the White Walkers are an analogy for climate change. If White Walkers represent climate change, White Walkers are a metaphor for climate change. That is just what the word metaphor means.

Here are the two definitions for metaphor listed by Dictionary.com

1. a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.”Compare mixed metaphor, simile(def 1).
2. something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.

Neither of them mention explaining anything because that is not what a metaphor is. You might be thinking of allegory.

Your opinion on whether purely evil races are more interesting than nuanced characters is purely your opinion, and you are welcome to it.

"Not to mention you making nonsense arguments. Where are we? How about you read the thread title. or the URL of the website youre on.
On my table, i can decide what Drow and Orcs are (and especialy i can have them not exist). In baldurs gate 3 i dont get to make that choice. Im at the mercy of a few hacks like mearls and crawford to not force a passionate developer to accept their california drivel."

I think it is weird that you think a particular political ideology is emanating from California which is victimizing Larian on the other side of the world. Do you know the prevailing world view of Larian? Do you know whether or not Sven was just wokeAF long before making his deal with WotC? Anyway, BG3 is a 5e game, and 5e, as we have already established, had already moved away from inherent evil races. We all saw the way goblins are handled in the demonstration, so we already know what to expect. This is a solved mystery. Soooo...much ado about nothing?

And, to your question, I am here, in this thread, to say this is a silly concern and much ado about nothing.

"Tolkien is afterall not the final arbiter of fantasy" (I never claimed or insinuated he was)
"Tolkien was a christian, christians did afterall try to convert imaginary dog headed people in india." (This gem that has nothing to do with anything was thrown in with no explanation)
"Wether or not they were meant to be evil to be walking speedbumps is irrelevant to the question." (I never made anything close to that claim, sooo what?)
"a metaphor and a stand in is something different." (Nope, they aren't)
"and no, "nuance" is not an argment here, not everyhting is improved by bringing moral relativism into it." (I never mentioned moral relativism, but that is not the same thing as or implied by nuance)
"Also my argument comes from a place of someone who likes telling stories within the genre, WOTCs move comes out of fear of beeing labled Evil by the California crowd." (does not play with the California crowd)

But not only am I the one making nonsense arguments, but it is actually I who am projecting. You are just charming, you know that? But if you so inclined, how exactly am I diverting? Reading my previous replies I see my posts as being quite on point and that you are the one meandering all over the place.

That sounds more right. It's been over 40 years since I studied LotR, so I probably remember somethings wrong.




While I see reality in more strict terms of good and evil, I like my entertainment to be more morally gray. But that wasn't the point of my post. There has been this fallacy going around some circles, that Orcs represent people of color. That's not what Tolkien intended when he created them. And while Tolkien "is not the final arbiter of fantasy" @Sordak, he did invent Orcs. At least in literature. And he didn't do it as a backhanded slap to any specific ethnicity.

Tolkien's Elves as Angels is a very common misconception. It is an easy mistake to make given how immaculately flawless their characterization is in LotR. The only reason I know the letter with that quote about the true inspiration off the top of my head is because this has come up so often. XD

The second part of my post wasn't actually directed as a response to you. I was only planning on being a super Tolkien nerd and correcting the Elves/Angel remark. Then I realized I could throw in some more Tolkienology that was more pertinent to the discussion.

While Tolkien does get some flak for the Orcs, I think that his work has actually aged quite well, considering when it was written. Sauron draws evil men from all across the globe into his army, but Sam has that moment when he questions whether or not these people are truly evil or just misled or coerced into fighting, which clearly is not the sentiment of a man trying to promote racial animus through literature. So, yeah, anybody who claims that Orcs were ever intended as exaggerated and dehumanized non-Europeans is quite certainly mistaken.

Now if only Lovecraft wasn't so atrociously racist. I'd love to be able to enjoy some eldritch horror, but damn, that man just really had a lot of hate in him and wasn't even subtle about it.

>fallacies
Again with this. Fallacies in an internet debate are essentialy nothing more than namecaling.
You accuse me of running a different argument from you, which is a amazing considering that the argument ive been making in this thread predates yours.

Meanwhile instead of joining in the ongoing debate, you decide, with full confidence that the debate is irrelevant "much ado about nothing" and thn you choose to be condescending about it for good measure.

>Orcs and Drow are not personified Climate change
Oh are they not the boogeyman?
How are "always chaotic evil that comes from the underdark to steal people" not the definition of the boogeyman.
Sometimes a Chaotiv Evil Humanoid is just a Chaotic Evil Humanoid specifically made so there is a boogeyman you can fight without getting into ideas that dont fit the narrative created such as "territory disputes" "prisoners of war" or "diplomacy" which you have to do if you want to portray conflicts with humans.

Hence why im saying, they are the boogeyman, im gonna use that term now if you find it less offensive or fallacious.
My argument was that you can use a boogeyman as a stand in for another issue. They are a tool to be used. This argument obviously trancended Forgotten Realms. This should in theory not be a problem to you since you went on to the tolkien debate.

So if you want to ignore that, the core Idea can be summarized as:
The Orc and the Drow exists because it is not Human.

If a Conflict against the Drow should carry the same ramifications as does the conflict with Humans, wed use Humans instead. Theres plenty of villainous nations and wizards around in FR.
Which is the point you still somehow do not adress, because its the point of this very thread.

> much ado about nothing
And thats where youre wrong.
Whats happening is that a narrative element is beeing removed.
And the reason is the simmilarity between the Orc and the Human. As in, they both use tools, they both speak languages, they both have armies.
The distinciton between Orc and Human beeing that one of them is capeable of Evil, while one is Evil by default but perhaps capeable of good.

It is not "much ado about nothing" because WOTC is removing this lable from all those races where this specific scenario can be played out.
Yes illithids are pure evil. Illithids also dont make armies.
Illithids dont work in the same way Orcs do.
Meanwhile Humans already exist.
Removing alwas chaotic evil races decreases the ammount of narrative freedom a writer, a quest designer, a DM that wants to stick to the lore has, meanwhile nothing is gained.
the possibility of good orcs and good drow was always there. Now only it is no longer an aspiraitonal thing or a specific backstory.
The Nuance has been reduced rather than increased.

>Wokeness and Sven
well, unlike you ive been following Larian for a while so i can answer your question that you didnt think id give you an aswer to: no.
Watch the Interviews of Dragon Commander, or go read the Deviantart Blog Post of the Larian artist when Steam had them remove the Original Sin 1 box art.

So no. Not much ado about nothing.

>i was on point
in replying to someone who compared it to tolkien?
your entire post chain here is a reply to one side argument made to further a different argument, made by a different person.
You dont get to decide who or what is or isnt on point.

Hence your accusation of a fallacy is incorrect.

Given the current climate I think they will be strongly considering implementing -in BG3- whatever changes WotC has in mind re ‘races’ going forward. They would be mad not to.

It’s not that difficult to see why some people might get upset about the most obvious visible difference between the ‘Usually Evil Drow’ and the ‘Not Usually Evil’ other Elves being that they are dark skinned. Nor is it difficult to predict that there will be a significant backlash (particularly by the ‘woke’ game journalist fraternity) if BG3 is released with that representation still in place. ‘But they’re just fantasy races wtf!’ just isn’t going to fly anymore, whether it should or not.

I think the entire concept of assigning morality to races will have to go (ie. no ‘Evil Races’). A culture or an ideology could be defined as ‘Evil’, and there could be significant overlap between a given race and an ‘Evil’ culture/ideology, but the difference between defining the culture/ideology as ‘Evil’ and the race itself as *inherently* ‘Evil’ is still important and that message must be consistent. As far as I can tell they have started moving in this direction already, which seems sensible.

I would also recommend being far less liberal with the use of the word ‘race’ and more liberal with the use of ‘species’, which is a harmless change but removes a lot of the heat from the issue. People generally get less upset about speciesism than racism. If you want to have an ‘Evil Species’ it’s probably a good idea to make it physically Very Obviously Not Human, not just human but bigger, human but smaller, or human but with pointy ears etc.

None of this is to say racism can’t exist and be explored within the game world itself of course - that’s a different issue.

I just wish the Americans would stop forcing their retarded politics into video games.

You registered a new account just to say that?

Yes

Omg, you need to chill out. You are going to hurt yourself.

Anyway, it doesn't matter whether or not you made the point long before I did, it was a bad argument back on page one.
If you read this: "Your whole premise is a bit of a red hearing." and see name calling, you need to be less hypersensitive and get real, dude.

I wasn't looking to join the debate. I just made my comment offering my opinion that I was satisfied with the circumstances. You came along and started talking to me. I will totally admit to being condescending. But, I didn't go looking to correct your bad arguments. You offered them, so I just threw them back at you. You have been at least as much as dick as I have been, so I don't feel badly about it.

My favorite part of your post was when you write "Hence your accusation of a fallacy is incorrect," as if you had done anything to prove that in the preceding post. I'm not going to press the point, though. You are a very bad debate partner and I am not getting anything of this, so I am going to stop talking to you now.

You win. Enjoy that.

ok :^)

My 2 cents:

- This is a DnD game, so it does not matter what Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones or whatever does.
- WotC own DnD and they can make the rules however they want. You can like or not like those rules or changes of those rules, but they are making the rules.
- It is a fantasy setting, so I would be careful to say fantasy race x represents real world issue y. Unless you have a quote from the creator ( in case of BG3 its Larian and WotC) I would not say that orcs represent climate change or something like that.
- Drow (and maybe others) are a playable race or you can have them as companions ( e.g. Nok Nok in PK ). That means you can play as lawful good drow paladin. If it makes sense is a question between the player and the DM ( or the dev in case of a computer game). If it does not make sense to you, nobody forces you to play such a char or accept him/her in your party.
- Personally I like those changes. I like how the goblins are shown in the latest video. They are evil, but they are evil people with their own culture. I think it is wrong to show a sentient race (e.g. is able to speak, uses tools and weapons, . . . ) as mindless monsters.
- While I am against saying "fantasy race x represents real world issue y", I look at goblins/orcs/drow/... in a way I look at aztec, vikings or whatever: They may be evil fom my point of view, they may even be evil from an objective point of view (because good/evil/law/chaos are real in the DnD setting) but it is a culture that makes sense for people who are part of this culture. There may be individuals who are against some aspects of their culture (e.g. Drizzt for drow) but they are forced to leave ( and other races probably not like you too because you are race x) or they have a very hard time in their culture, up to the point of getting killed. (e.g. Lets sacifice the heretic who says that sacrificing people is bad.)
- Stories are boring if they are always the same. PST was a great game because it turned everything upside down. But first you have to establish rules in order to break them.
You could argue that "drow are an evil race" is a good rule because it makes good drow more interesting.