It still bothers me that they made the one notable matriarchal society (that of the Drow) evil; doing that really feels like sexism to me. (I should point out that my only real exposure to this is Baldur's Gate 2's interpretation.)

Also, in 3.x, male and female Drow still have different favored classes (Wizard for male, Cleric for female). This actually begs the question: What is the favored class of a non-binary Drow? (The 5e rules, even the core rules you can find for free online, explicitly allow characters who aren't male or female.)

How is it a stereotype when males really are stronger than females, both on average and world records.
If you (or TSR) really mean that you open up a can of worms regarding racial stereotypes.

So ideas in a magazine? How is that comparable(in terms of potential impact to the game) to official 'enshrined' changes to canon?

(I was trying to showcase how such ideas vs actual canon changes are two different things in terms of potential impact, by the way)

Some people like "lazy" storytelling sometimes(just like with so called popcorn flicks). It is not always a bad thing. :)

And changing things are good and all but the complaints some have about this is more a case of complaints about WHY it was changed rather than what and what impact it will have.

The same reasons why a good number of companies and people are making similar changes 'out of the blue', I would expect(for good press or similar).

I disagree somewhat on this.

For one, I don't think some cookie cutter game enemies and the like should bother people in real life so much.

And also if someone wants to make a game full of satirical stereotypes then I think that's fine(if done with no obvious major ill intent behind such). No one has to buy or play them.

I am going to open that can of worms. OK?

You make a good point here, and one I also hold to a good degree.

Game and other media(fiction) is meant to often be an ESCAPE from reality and many use it as such. Injecting more aspects of real life and reality(even for *insert pc buzzword here*) only serves to turn a good number off of such the more this is done, even if they agree with the beliefs being inserted in some cases.

And this is a good reason why one would not want racism and sexism in the rules of the game; they're some of the more unpleasant aspects of real life, so why put them in games as well?

There is a major difference between 'ACTUAL' harmful examples of those things and a bit of nearly harmless (Beyond someone getting a bit offended. And no I don't see that as a major harm in many such instances, barring some rare exceptions) stereotypes in FANTASY creatures and settings.

Of course all this is an example of another problem in society at large.

(Which would be people seeming to SEEK OUT things to be offended by instead of tackling actual issues in real life. Either because it is easier for them to do so than solve the world's problems, or possibly because they like to find things to be offended by)

In the case of these settings, people can change things as they wish(as many have pointed out). That means if there is a bit of canon someone dislike they can change it for their own games. There's no major need to alter all of canon for everyone because a depiction of a fictional race might offend someone somewhere.

You might want to look up what "stereotype" means.

And how do you judge is something is racist or sexists in a fictional world ?

If there is some fictional world where woman as usually twice bigger and stronger than men on average are you going to call that sexists ? If there is a fictional world where halfling are a species of blood thirsty murderer killing and torturing everybody they get their hands on are you going to call that "racist" ?

Murder, violence, suffering, tyranny, are also "unpleasant" aspect of real life, why put them in games as well ?

I disagree; if the canon is offensive to a group of people, those people will be discouraged from playing the game, which in turn means fewer people will play said game, which translates into reduced sales.

The solution is to avoid making the world sexist/racist in the first place.

As a side note: If you want to differentiate the races, I would suggest making the differences as drastic as SaGa Frontier, where different races have fundamentally different rules for character growth (but at least *try* to balance things); it's not as interesting when every playable race is really just "human except for these characteristics".

The ironic thing is that this reeks of the same changes applied to D&D as a consequence of the satanic panic. The most obvious ones were removing judeo-christian "demon" and "devil" references, but it's also applied in more subtle ways, like changing "thief" for "rogue" (which is arguable, but i think they didn't wanted to have such a "direct" reference to crime on a character that could be good, and rogue is an actual literary character from the middle ages, but still), and making drow be dark blue instead of dark brown.

I can assure you that "people of color" don't mind these stereotypes. You have to be able to tell fantasy from reality, and this is a wargame that's like 40 years old at this point. The interesting part is that people of color from outside the USA are often happy when "stereotypes" are introduced in games, because they see themselves in those. Mario was given a stereotypical mexican attire (with the poncho and the big hat), and americans complained because it was racist even after mexicans themselves (mexicans of mexico, that is) said they were super happy of seeing Mario dressed like one of them.

This makes me sick to be honest. But you gotta love that they don't think that a matriarchy being "evil" is a bad thing. I dunno, it reeks of opportunism, I just want to tell them SILENCE, BRAND!

If it's a few people and they're the perpetually offended type I feel they should ignore the parts they dislike or find something else to play. Same as anyone else really.

Essentially I don't feel ANY company should bend the knee to any small group of such people(even if it benefitted me).

How can they even do that when what is either of those changes from week to week in some cases?

I still feel the above would be the best solution. Let those few who dislike such things play something else or ignore the content they dislike.

That relies on there being something else that:
* Is worth playing
* That the player is aware of
* That doesn't also suffer from the same issues
* That other people in the area want to play

Given how well known D&D is in comparison to other TTRPGs, it can be hard for all of these criteria to be met. People who are not into TTRPGs often aren't aware of TTRPGs other than D&D, and if D&D in particular is hostile to them, they likely won't bother with the hobby at all.

(One way to tell if someone is really into TTRPGs is if the person mentions something other than D&D.)

Edit: Why the low rating?

And again how do you judge if something is racist or sexists in a fictional world ? and especially when also talking about fictional species/race ?

If you have a world where the ratmen (sorry I mean ratpersons) can barely speak or have a coherent though are you going to consider it "racist" if they are described as having lower intelligence than other sentient species ?

I'd like to know what goes in your mind when a fictional character from a fantasy game makes you not wanting to play the game. Maybe it's because I'm not american, but 90% of the D&D players I know are the complete opposite of the sweaty neckbeard white male stereotype. In fact, the most enthusiastic D&D players I know are women, women of color even... in fact, I learned about D&D because one of them invited me to play. They love the game as it is, because they loved The Lord of the Rings, and these inane changes are "just gringos doing gringo shit", according to a comment this same woman gave me when I showed her the article describing the changes.

It seems like everyone wants to have a say on a problem they can't fix by themselves. You don't go to the butcher to get brain surgery.