Yeah, I'm going to be honest, that is ....rather poorly researched and argued....statements with not great evidence to back them up etc. Sticks to the narrative of 'drow were bad but getting better in 5e' even when namedropping Eilistraee....a goddess from 2e. I'm generally just not super impressed when 'drow are racist because they are evil and dark skinned' is an argument that's seriously thrust forward and presented as is, as if it's inherently an undeniably obvious fact. Drow and racial issues are a way more complex topic than that sort of reductionist hyperbole applies to.
Originally Posted by spacehamster95
Oversimplification of what? It is well known what inspired Drows from American pop culture. And it aint pretty. Pointy Hat a dnd youtuber made a good video bout Elves, he shortly alludes to drows. Check it out, he is quite good.
Well, I talked about it to an extent in my post. You eh, just didn't address it. In regards to Forgotten Realms, the setting was very much not a 'drow were evil by nature' setting. Certainly Drizzt is very famous(infamous) as being a renegade good drow. Eilistraee and the development the Drow got in 2e was a direct result IIRC of a player asking the creator of the setting, Ed Greenwood to facilitate playing good drow. And Facilitate he (and the other writers) did.
Certainly it's a bit of a stretch to say that drow were intrinsically evil in 2e when faced with stuff like Elminster having a drow apprentice, one of the Seven Sisters being a drow & the existence of Eilistraee...hard to label them a monoculture when the sourcebooks of the time were full of alternatives to Menzoberranzan. 2e the writers went full out trying to flesh out the drow, writing new cultures, locations and deities for them. Also, It's....kinda impossible to play through the Original Saga and come to the conclusion that Drow were all evil by nature. Again, 2e.
But 3rd rolls around and WoTC decides that 'good monsters' is stupid, and that all the previous stuff written about alternate drow cultures and good drow subtract from the specialness of the Drizzt cash cow. They kill off the other drow gods, raze most of the non-menzoberranzan cities to the ground, and come up with the goofball idea that Drow are black-skinned because their blood is *literally tainted* by evil, essentially the Curse of Ham, despite multiple previous authors writing other explanations that weren't copy-paste RL white supremacist excuses for racism.
So yeah, I'd say there was a huge dip in quality in regards to how they were portrayed starting somewhere in 3rd edition through fourth and into fifth. WoTC just kinda decided that there was too much drow lore-that it needed to be simplified to be more accessible, and that pure evil drow were more marketable. The current situation in regards to drow portrayal is very much one of WoTC's own making.
Originally Posted by Doomlord
The dwarves suck as well, the selection for beards its absurd. Not sure if anyone at larian has even opened a players hand book.
I agree. Dwarves definitely could benefit from a wider selection. At the very least though, they physically seem to align more with D&D's fairly consistent portrayal of Dwarves. Larian even listened and went back and made the Duergar less hirsute, which as something of a FR lore junkie, I appreciated. Gives me a sliver of hope the elves get a pass as well, and get some more angular faces, larger, angled eyes etc so they don't look interchangeable with half-elves.
