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Honestly, I don't see how anyone can defend WotC in this circumstance. They used their editorial powers to make the adventure significantly more racist. They put effort into this, they wanted the racism. gently caress them.
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Mar 23, 2021 16:07
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Grippli are cool anyway.
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Mar 23, 2021 16:16
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Meinberg posted:Honestly, I don't see how anyone can defend WotC in this circumstance. They used their editorial powers to make the adventure significantly more racist. They put effort into this, they wanted the racism. gently caress them. It would be easier to argue a defense if they just cut what was written - blame it on word count, other editing standards, whatever. Wouldn't argue it myself but could see logic. Adding writing of their own to reinforce the changes the cut made wipes any real arguments that aren't malicious. So yes. gently caress 'em.
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Mar 23, 2021 16:20
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This is also the franchise where they took care to specify that e.g. gnolls are innately evil demon spawn with no culture of their own. So I can't say that this editorial direction is surprising.
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Mar 23, 2021 16:42
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Halloween Jack posted:This is also the franchise where they took care to specify that e.g. gnolls are innately evil demon spawn with no culture of their own. So I can't say that this editorial direction is surprising. The Znir pact will not stand for this slander.
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Mar 23, 2021 16:43
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https://twitter.com/mathayles/status/1374202020878458886?s=20 In which wizco does damage control poorly
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Mar 23, 2021 16:48
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It reminds me of when WarnerBros tried to drown out Ray Fisher by posting some "big announcement" on the same day. VVVV People need to understand that Diversity & Inclusion initiatives are part of HR--it's there to protect the company, not people. This was at the root of the debate over that "Guide for POC Safety" brouhaha that we had a while ago. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Mar 23, 2021 16:50
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The Panzercut drama is a dead-ringer for Orion Black's criticisms of WotC; namely that they talk a big game about inclusion and diversity before quietly editing out any actual attempts to make their game more inclusive and diverse. They hire queer or POC freelancers, but don't want those people to write explicitly queer-coded or anti-racist content
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Mar 23, 2021 16:56
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Leraika posted:https://twitter.com/mathayles/status/1374202020878458886?s=20 God, that's scummy. What a terrible company. Froghammer posted:The Panzercut drama is a dead-ringer for Orion Black's criticisms of WotC; namely that they talk a big game about inclusion and diversity before quietly editing out any actual attempts to make their game more inclusive and diverse. They hire queer or POC freelancers, but don't want those people to write explicitly queer-coded or anti-racist content 
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Mar 23, 2021 16:59
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Halloween Jack posted:This is also the franchise where they took care to specify that e.g. gnolls are innately evil demon spawn with no culture of their own. So I can't say that this editorial direction is surprising. Not to imply that WotC's treatment of humanoids is above is above criticism--I just don't think gnolls are a representative sample.
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Mar 23, 2021 17:49
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Halloween Jack posted:VVVV People need to understand that Diversity & Inclusion initiatives are part of HR--it's there to protect the company, not people. This was at the root of the debate over that "Guide for POC Safety" brouhaha that we had a while ago. This also makes WotC's actions more broadly insulting to their consumer base: That they're doing such a sloppy job of handling these sorts of HR issues and assuming it'll be good enough to fly shows how little regard they have for the intelligence of their fanbase. Elephant Parade posted:tbf they did the "inherently evil beings" thing for gnolls and gnolls alone. Contrast with their treatment of every other humanoid race, which was to give them a distinct culture (in Volo's Guude to Monsters, the same book that detailed the gnolls). I feel like the fact that they tried to move away from the whole "always chaotic evil" thing for the other humanoid races but not for Gnolls makes it stand out all the more. It feels like a super weird outlier when their source material is all "Oh we're working to portray the traditionally 'evil' humanoids in a more nuanced and thoughtful manner so they're not simply races of one-dimensional cannon-fodder for the PCs to slay...except Gnolls, gently caress those guys!"
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Mar 23, 2021 17:56
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KingKalamari posted:This also makes WotC's actions more broadly insulting to their consumer base: That they're doing such a sloppy job of handling these sorts of HR issues and assuming it'll be good enough to fly shows how little regard they have for the intelligence of their fanbase.
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Mar 23, 2021 18:04
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KingKalamari posted:I feel like the fact that they tried to move away from the whole "always chaotic evil" thing for the other humanoid races but not for Gnolls makes it stand out all the more. It feels like a super weird outlier when their source material is all "Oh we're working to portray the traditionally 'evil' humanoids in a more nuanced and thoughtful manner so they're not simply races of one-dimensional cannon-fodder for the PCs to slay...except Gnolls, gently caress those guys!"
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Mar 23, 2021 18:15
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DesertIslandHermit posted:I thought the Grung and Bullywugs were the only frog races. Goddamn this is a mess. Gripplis have been around forever, my earliest memory is the TSR version which is literally the artist drawing a frog with a utility belt 
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Mar 23, 2021 18:18
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Yeah, they basically took the gnoll's mythic history of being spawned from hyenas by yeenoghu and made it A) real and B) currently happening. So they're functionally just fleshbound demons which is profoundly less interesting.
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Mar 23, 2021 18:22
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I think it's because WOTC did want an unquestionable evil enemy to fight, like Nazis and Zombies. I think it's better than half measures ("All Gnolls are Nazis! Wait, poo poo-") but it's still stupid.
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Mar 23, 2021 18:38
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Did FASA or any of the successor companies for ShadowRun ever address the wholesale tokenization of the shamanism as portrayed in the game? I stopped following it closely back in the 90s when I went to university.
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Mar 23, 2021 18:42
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Nystral posted:Did FASA or any of the successor companies for ShadowRun ever address the wholesale tokenization of the shamanism as portrayed in the game? I stopped following it closely back in the 90s when I went to university. I don't think anyone accused them of that afaik
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Mar 23, 2021 18:52
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Nystral posted:Did FASA or any of the successor companies for ShadowRun ever address the wholesale tokenization of the shamanism as portrayed in the game? I stopped following it closely back in the 90s when I went to university. let's be honest, shadowrun is busy enough with basic dice math to worry about issues of representation
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Mar 23, 2021 18:52
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We have to get this in front of Hideo Kojima.
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Mar 23, 2021 18:54
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Gripplis have been around forever, my earliest memory is the TSR version which is literally the artist drawing a frog with a utility belt These little guys own actually, and I would have loved to see PanzerLion’s take on them.
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Mar 23, 2021 18:55
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Sodomy Hussein posted:Gripplis have been around forever, my earliest memory is the TSR version which is literally the artist drawing a frog with a utility belt This has really extreme Jojo's Bizarre Adventure energy.
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Mar 23, 2021 19:14
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Tibalt posted:I think it's because WOTC did want an unquestionable evil enemy to fight, like Nazis and Zombies. I think it's better than half measures ("All Gnolls are Nazis! Wait, poo poo-") but it's still stupid. Which is even weirder because if you want an unquestionably evil enemy like zombies, zombies are right there.
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Mar 23, 2021 19:15
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Nystral posted:Did FASA or any of the successor companies for ShadowRun ever address the wholesale tokenization of the shamanism as portrayed in the game? I stopped following it closely back in the 90s when I went to university. there is much more racist or otherwise problematic poo poo in shadowrun than the shamanism and no the devs dont particularly care
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Mar 23, 2021 19:17
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Kai Tave posted:Which is even weirder because if you want an unquestionably evil enemy like zombies, zombies are right there. To be fair, there’s actually a ton of racist baggage linked to zombies, we just as a society have all decided to not ever talk about or address their origin being fundamentally linked to fears of black spirituality and evil magic and US adventurism in Haiti. E: skeletons or revenants or whatever can be fairly easily detached from this, mind you. Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Mar 23, 2021 19:22
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Tibalt posted:I think it's because WOTC did want an unquestionable evil enemy to fight, like Nazis and Zombies. I think it's better than half measures ("All Gnolls are Nazis! Wait, poo poo-") but it's still stupid. Let me tell you about the Znir Pact. In Eberron, a few hundred years before the Mourning, a collection of Gnoll tribes got together and realized that demon worship was kind of a Zero sum game, and they were losing. So they gathered at the village of Znir, which was the center of their Yeenoghu worship, and shattered all the idols. They then signed a treatise stating that no Gnoll of the pact would war against another Gnoll. (There's still some inter-pack squabbling but they don't do 'to the death' anymore). Then started hiring themselves out as mercenaries. And they serve as the de-facto police force in the "Monster" Nation of Droaam. Their faith, such as it is, is worshipping piles of rubble to remind themselves that they have forsaken the false gods. They do their best to honor and respect everyone they kill because, if they're going to go to hell, they might as well make sure there isn't an army of angry souls waiting for them when they get there. If two Znir mercenaries find each other on opposite sides of the conflict, they'll seek each other out and have a duel, never to the death. And whoever loses just leaves. This tends to piss whoever hired them off but that's just how they operate. Some Gnolls will break the pact for enough gold but that's basically making themselves a kill on sight non-person to the rest of the Pact. There are still 'always chaotic evil' gnolls in the Demon Wastes but the reasoning there should be fairly evident.
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Mar 23, 2021 19:26
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Mors Rattus posted:To be fair, there’s actually a ton of racist baggage linked to zombies, we just as a society have all decided to not ever talk about or address their origin being fundamentally linked to fears of black spirituality and evil magic and US adventurism in Haiti. if this is your take on the modern night of the living dead zombie I'd hate to see what you'd think of D&D's juju zombie
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Mar 23, 2021 19:43
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Froghammer posted:The Panzercut drama is a dead-ringer for Orion Black's criticisms of WotC; namely that they talk a big game about inclusion and diversity before quietly editing out any actual attempts to make their game more inclusive and diverse. They hire queer or POC freelancers, but don't want those people to write explicitly queer-coded or anti-racist content  Kurieg posted:Let me tell you about the Znir Pact. Just another reminder that Eberron is rad as hell.
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Mar 23, 2021 20:01
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Tibalt posted:I think it's because WOTC did want an unquestionable evil enemy to fight, like Nazis and Zombies. I think it's better than half measures ("All Gnolls are Nazis! Wait, poo poo-") but it's still stupid. The thing is you do not need to tie an unquestionable evil to a race. If you want to tell me the Order of Tiamat are Nazis, fine. Just don't make them a species. And if you want to make an evil species make them demons trying to invade and set up in the Prime Material. And sending small numbers that warp the land around them, claim land, and make sure ordinary people can't survive on territory they've claimed. (Any comparison to demonic homesteaders is entirely intentional).
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Mar 23, 2021 20:18
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neonchameleon posted:The thing is you do not need to tie an unquestionable evil to a race. If you want to tell me the Order of Tiamat are Nazis, fine. Just don't make them a species. This goalpost shift has been tried and it just results in people going to bat for demons not being monolithic either.
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Mar 23, 2021 20:19
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D&D: These species of creatures that your level 1 characters may fight are inherently evil and you can always kill them on sight forever Also D&D: yes there are actual demons and devils with 675 planes of evil, warfare, and betrayal between them, but you'll see from their descriptions many are actually super smart and have these complex plans, so hey you might actually get to meet them and talk to them, maybe make a deal or see things their way for a while!
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Mar 23, 2021 21:02
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theironjef posted:This goalpost shift has been tried and it just results in people going to bat for demons not being monolithic either.
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Mar 23, 2021 21:06
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There's an understandable and morally appropriate desire to critique narratives that cast an entire category of people as evil, but without a sense of proportion or historicity you arrive at a weirdly centrist ideology of 'who can say what's good or bad? The real badness is being judgmental' which is neither insightful nor useful, but apparently catnip to certain kinds of writer.
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Mar 23, 2021 21:40
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Nessus posted:It is tangential to the core point but I think there are people who are just in search of the "a-HA!!" moment. You replace the orcs with Doom imps, well now the Doom imps have a diverse society. You completely avoid race alignment but make the Order of Tiamat into Nazis, well what if there are good Tiamatis. You say that Zeus, St. Cuthbert and Corellion Lauthorean all say "No, the Order of Tiamat are 100% bastards and their inner circle minions sacrifice their souls for class levels and spell-likes," well now THOSE GODS are clearly the real evil who we need to oppose. The thing is, if you're framing the Order of Tiamat as Nazis and also arguing that there are good Tiamatis, you're making the argument that there are good Nazis, which...I guess if you want to have that argument at your table, you can, but for the most part, framing a faction as evil is enough.
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Mar 23, 2021 21:42
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There are good nazis irl but not in d&d because you can't raise the dead irl.
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Mar 23, 2021 22:16
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"Well I'm not really a Tiamat cultist, I just really really enjoy the aesthetic and hang out with a few of them, pretty chill people most of the time."
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Mar 23, 2021 22:24
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Tibalt posted:I think it's because WOTC did want an unquestionable evil enemy to fight, like Nazis and Zombies. I think it's better than half measures ("All Gnolls are Nazis! Wait, poo poo-") but it's still stupid. This is the stupidest fumble every time though (and people make it all the time) because there's a very easy way to make unquestionably evil Nazi enemies to fight, which is to put them in Nazi uniforms. (Or whatever the equivalent in your world is, of course.) No one's objecting to the idea that there's an explicitly intelligent human-like enemy that you know is hostile - that's a design goal you could want for non-terrible reasons. The problem is when you also make that group defined by circumstances of birth rather than circumstances of choice.
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Mar 23, 2021 22:27
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The problem is that D&D is stupid and used "Evil" where it should have said "Antagonist." No going back now, though.
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Mar 23, 2021 22:55
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People want to have fun unproblematic violence, but it turns out violence is always problematic so that doesn't exist. You either find the level of problematicness you are comfortable with, just don't think with it enough, or play a game that isn't based around fun problematic violence.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:15
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theironjef posted:This goalpost shift has been tried and it just results in people going to bat for demons not being monolithic either. The answer is twofold. The Nazis weren't monolithic either - they were a bunch of backstabbing megalomaniac pricks - but they were still Nazis. Them not being a monolith adds far more hooks but they are still Nazis. The second part is I don't care whether someone is kind to animals. If they are trying to terraform our planet into something we can't live on again it doesn't really matter whether they are monolithic, they are inimical to our life. "Not a monolith" doesn't mean something shouldn't be fought.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:21
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