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2016's Curse of Strahd, for instance, contained the Vistani, a group made from Romani tropes, and one that exacerbated negative stereotypes.
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mechmouse: TSR then WotC borrowed heavily from real world cultures when making these Races.

Also, using polarised, cliché stereotypes is piss poor storytelling
I'm going through a Curse of Strahd module now... we just got out of Madame Eva's camp. Yeah, the negative Romani stereotypes were tangible. An entire people unquestioningly serving a vampire prince, even as they seek to release him from his curse?

That being said... fantasy and science fiction have long drawn on real world stereotypes to create their "planets of hats". Some franchises have tried to branch out -- the Ferengi gained depth in DS9, for example -- but this hasn't been effective everywhere.
Yeah and Star Trek is especially bad at this, like how klingons are this and vulcans are that and borgs too.

If I was any of those, I'd be be pissed.
Dear Player Charictor:
The local dragon (here after refered to as Client) has issued a restarining order against you.
if you come within 3 map zones of my client or his residence, you will be subject to upto 5 years in the local dungeon, upto a 50,000 gp fine, and\or being lunch.

sincerly,
PETD(People for the Eithecal Treatment of Dragons)
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timppu: Yeah and Star Trek is especially bad at this, like how klingons are this and vulcans are that and borgs too.

If I was any of those, I'd be be pissed.
To be fair, I think a major reason for the Borg being pretty much always lawful evil was the hive mind that guided them. Once individual drones were released from the hive mind, they tended to be more diverse.
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This is not dumb, pulling away from 70's line of thinking and replacing it with its 2020 variant is very progressive and maybe even needed
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timppu: Yeah and Star Trek is especially bad at this, like how klingons are this and vulcans are that and borgs too.

If I was any of those, I'd be be pissed.
That's a pretty bad example. Klingons are the prime example of a fictional race given great development and changing from 2 dimensional bad guys to complex ally full of shades of gray. And being a uniform monolith devoid of identity is pretty much the whole point of the Borg. In fact, that's their goal.

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Matewis: Rather inexcusably I'll admit, I've only read one of Pratchett's books :\
In a way that makes you lucky - you can read them for the first time! I'm re-reading the whole series now, and regret so much that I'll never get to read a new book of his.
Post edited June 23, 2020 by Breja
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Radiance1979: This is not dumb, pulling away from 70's line of thinking and replacing it with its 2020 variant is very progressive and maybe even needed
Except in 2020 it's no longer about thinking, but about feeling.
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Matewis: So no arguments there. Truthfully I was and am more concerned for the Tolkien and Warhammer universes, where the evil races are afaik(?) pretty irredeemably evil and/or monotone in other ways - like all-male astartes which bothers some people.
Tolkien himself seemingly never settled on what exactly the orcs were supposed to be. As a Catholic, the idea of anyone being irredeemable didn't fit with his beliefs and he seems to have been leaning more toward the idea of the orcs falling into a sort of intellectual laziness that made them easily manipulated by demagogues like Sauron and Saruman. Presumably most of the smarter, more level-headed orcs either got massacred, enslaved, or figured out how to be inconspicuous to not arouse suspicion.
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Radiance1979: This is not dumb, pulling away from 70's line of thinking and replacing it with its 2020 variant is very progressive and maybe even needed
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PetrusOctavianus: Except in 2020 it's no longer about thinking, but about feeling.
yea populisme reigns the street, and with an ever increasing population and growing crisises this sort of behavior has become a poor men's handle.... birth control literal, strict rules on the death penalty and family care ( as less as 1 parent families as possible ) should have been main concerns by now
I like the twist in Warcraft how the Orcs lost their blood lust after being free from demons, was quite unique at the time.

Also Drizzit is a Drow and rebels against his culture of extreme hate, and if I recall some other drow slowly follow suit; but the topic at hand is forcing narrative on people so that fantasy worlds reflect real life which is silly and against the point of a fantasy world.
Post edited June 23, 2020 by David9855
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WinterSnowfall: If you ever wanted to play a Lawful Good Undead Lich, I guess now's your time to shine! Sure, I mean it's necromancy, but in a good way.
Lawful good when the act of becoming a lich is a crime against nature itself and the fabric of space and time rebels against your very existence. Sure that can be lawful good. In my custom campaigns, Slavers could actually be Lawful good, because good and evil are social constructs and if it is socially correct, then it is good, and of course it was within the laws. Not that I find slavery to be good. But it was an argument that was made as a commentary on the state of the world and how people are being chastised and torn down for things they did when it was legal and socially acceptable to do so.
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Matewis: Sure, as babark mentions above Warcraft successfully changed the orcs background, very successfully in fact. WC3 remains my favorite rts to this day, in large part because of its story and atmosphere. WoW even somewhat managed to do the same with the undead, or at least a faction of the undead.
IMHO there is a big difference between expanding the lore or Warcraft Orcs, that was mostly non-existent at that point, or even changing it for scenaristics reasons and and altering established races with years of lore simply because a bunch of present days morons are offended by fictional fantasy races.
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David9855: I like the twist in Warcraft how the Orcs lost their blood lust after being free from demons, was quite unique at the time.

Also Drizzit is a Drow and rebels against his culture of extreme hate, and if I recall some other drow slowly follow suit; but the topic at hand is forcing narrative on people so that fantasy worlds reflect real life which is silly and against the point of a fantasy world.
i do recall a certain story where not he but an involved female monk could not subdue her hatred for him
I feel like the real problem with this stuff is that they have to make this a statement.
A headline.

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David9855: I like the twist in Warcraft how the Orcs lost their blood lust after being free from demons, was quite unique at the time.

Also Drizzit is a Drow and rebels against his culture of extreme hate
Exactly! This whole thing has been done before, but it was never made into a statement about how WotC is so super duper progressive. They just did this stuff for no other reason than "yooo you know what'd be cool? A drow that rebels against the drow society, sick right? Yeah let's do that". It's almost like we don't need Twitter to write stories.

If all of these companies and individuals would just shut up about doing things and would just do them first, they wouldn't come across as such narrow minded propaganda pushing dummies. Unless they do it terribly (which they will) which would ruin the game to the point where people just don't buy the new version.
Post edited June 23, 2020 by ExoticEel
Of Orcs and Men also has Orcs as strong peaceful tribals if I recall. I highly recommend the Drizzit series to everyone the first 3 books at least for a look at a hateful matriarch spider queen state (that is fantasy.)

Fantasy worlds are just that; want to create a world with dire goats running amok falling from the sky and force peaceful intelligent goblins to hide in the mountains, you can. Want your Elves to be numerous and evil while the humans are slowly die ing out then make it so. The great thing about 5th edition D&D is you can home brew what ever you want you don't just have to have Forgotten Realms Orcs or Drow.

This is all just about looking trendy and scoring points with the current 'in' crowd I think rather then encouraging more people to play the game or true 'diversity.'