Half-Elfs and Tieflings are Racist now?

[[Huntai] NightLord]

there was an arctilcle that Dungeons & Dragons setting Half races was racist and would be removed from the game settings! Is this gonna Affect BG3 aswell??

my personal oppinion is that wizard of the coast have gone insane with Savage orcs Genders and good neutral evil theyve changed or removed!

[Lord Adorable]

No, Half-races and Tieflings are NOT being removed from D&D.
No, they will not be removed from BG3 either.

[[Huntai] NightLord]

First will be in the near future that was writen by WoC them selfs as they were problematic! if it doesnt affect BG3 then Good as ive got a NICE looking half elf char here! I my self dont play the New systems. Advanced dungeons & dragons is afr better no politics or real world ♥♥♥♥♥ in it

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Here we go again...

[Yojo0o]

There are already multiple huge threads on this subject. Just reply to one of those.

Or better yet, rather than contributing to the nothingburger of a discussion, read actual WotC discourse on the subject rather than rage-bait opinion articles attempting to push a narrative.

[Lord Adorable]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Loveless:

Here we go again...

Let this stupid non-topic just die already.

WoTC "We're adding half-everything, sod it."

People with an agenda "Half-races are racist! WoTC said so!"

[Razorblade]

You realize Tieflings aren't a half-race, right? Tieflings are produced from bloodlines that have had contact with fiendish influence (ie: your great-great grandpa was a Fiend Warlock), and manifest relatively randomly. It's perfectly normal, for example, for two human parents to have a Tiefling child. Having one mortal and one fiend parent would produce a Cambion, which has never been a playable race.

If you're going to spread misinformation about the whole half-race debacle, at least educate yourself on the basics of what you're talking about. Tieflings have never once been part of the half-race discussion.

Not to mention, you're wrong about the whole source issue to begin with. WotC didn't like the "half" part of the naming of the half-human races. As you might be able to tell, there's no "half" in "Tiefling." In the pre-release materials for One DnD, there are options for making characters with parents of any two races, rather than just one human and one orc/elf parent. No one ever said having parents of two different races was racist; that's would obviously be insane. So insane, in fact, that you should have known to do a little research instead of blindly parroting some alt-right blogger's very clear agenda.

[Hobocop]

Tieflings are projected to be included in the new upcoming PHB as of this writing.

So, that entire point is completely irrelevant.

[[Huntai] NightLord]

if i remember correctly plane scape tieflings were half breeds if im wrong then im wrong! my agenda if you can call it that is leave your politics out of entertainment unless its themed that why originaly! so i was afraid it might reach this game more than it already has! that was my concern nothing else!

[Metallicus]

WotC is terrible for the DnD IP, but I don’t believe they said they were actually removing the half races, but simply changing how they are handled. This is not the hill to die on.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Never let facts get in the way of outrage!

[Yojo0o]

Originally posted by NightLord:

if i remember correctly plane scape tieflings were half breeds if im wrong then im wrong! my agenda if you can call it that is leave your politics out of entertainment unless its themed that why originaly! so i was afraid it might reach this game more than it already has! that was my concern nothing else!

No, tieflings were never half-breeds.

[Yojo0o]

Originally posted by grumpymoose:

I'm still not quite sure I understand what they're going for.

From the ancestry example they gave, using a 'half elf' isn't an option, instead the player chooses elf or human as their race, then chooses an ancestry and culture. Ancestry would be things like Trance and Dark vision (elf ancestry) form the example given, while culture would yield stats and that sort of thing.

My worry with this is it sounds like you're just mixing ancestry packages with culture packages to create your half-elf, and that the half elf race "package", or an equivalent combination from Ancestry and Culture, no longer exists.

So the question is there, for me at least, will there be a mixed half ancestry/culture unique to the half elf? If there's not, then, yes, even if you can mix ancestry and culture, for me at least, the half elf of old is dead, because the half elf was more than just a simple mix or choice between human and elf stuff. They had their own unique package.

For example, just comparing the racial attribute packages, a Human gets an increase of one to their ability scores, an elf gets +2 dex, and a half elf gets +2 to charisma, and +1 to two other scores. Even before any other differences, up front, you have three 'attribute packages', from the old system, that one would assume fell under culture, in their new system. If there's only an elf and human culture, but no half elf culture (call it what you will) that yields the old half elf bonuses, well then that's just gone.

I went through the articles I could find to see if there was something more helpful, but in most of them WotC seem a bit unsure, and even mention up front, several times, that they think people will be confused. If they're so certain things are confusing, then it's really no wonder confusion and upset are rampant, but one wonders why they'd admit such a thing instead of just making things more clear.


I will say most of the upset around this probably isn't purely because of the new ancestry system itself. I think people are still upset about the OGL thing, so now any announcement is landing in front of people who are already feeling defensive. Maybe that's it anyways. I'm no mind reader. I suppose I can't really blame people for being upset, and it's not like I don't have some questions about the ancestry myself. I'd prefer it turn out good, for the better, and all that, but I'll admit to being a bit worried it won't be.

Just my two cents, not that two cents will buy anything anymore.

:lunar2020ratinablanket:

What you're missing is that the upcoming publication is still entirely compatible with the rest of 5e. Half-Elves and Half-Orcs have their own profiles and features which remain viable for new characters within this system. The idea that they're being "removed" has little bearing.

Also absent from the upcoming new PHB is the entire Artificer class and many of the supplemental sublcasses for various other classes, since you can only fit so much within one book. But nobody is crying about Artificers being "removed" from DnD, are they?

[[Huntai] NightLord]

The hill to have died on would and should have been when some ppl theorised that orcs represented black ppl. anyone knowing anything about the original creator of DnD would know that thats false. since that was allowed to stick its been downhill all the way.

i dont know how it got this way. ive never seen women barred from ANY DnD setting nor any racism directed at anyone in all my 34 years of gaming. only if you were being disruptive would you be thrown after several warnings. and would go for anyone race or gender. and i have to say that race nor gender has never i believe mattered. only if your good at your charecter or a good storyteller.

this is why i keep to the TsR years Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was a big deal and ive even started playing different settings with mine own children and would expose them to WoTC era!

[Razorblade]

Originally posted by NightLord:

The hill to have died on would and should have been when some ppl theorised that orcs represented black ppl. anyone knowing anything about the original creator of DnD would know that thats false. since that was allowed to stick its been downhill all the way.

Can't speak on elder Gygax, but Gygax Jr. is pretty openly racist and transphobic. Not saying he necessarily learned that from his parents, but they would be suspect #1 as to where he got his terrible views from.

Regardless, it's pretty easy to see how certain races being biologically evil and dimwitted could be considered problematic, regardless of creative intent. It screams eugenics-era thought, which probably isn't most modern people's idea of casual fun, especially if they're engaging in escapist fantasy to escape real-life prejudice.

Not to mention, it's just bad for role-playing in general. I can be any kind of human under the sun, but if I want to play an orc, I can only either play an evil orc, or an orc who struggles against his biological urge to commit evil. Gentle, pacifist orc who has never had a violent thought in his life? Completely impossible per the lore in the original issue of the 5E PHB; I'd have to ask my DM for special permission to not have some kind of great, internal struggle with my violent, animal tendencies.

[dulany67]

Originally posted by Razorblade:

Regardless, it's pretty easy to see how certain races being biologically evil and dimwitted could be considered problematic, regardless of creative intent. It screams eugenics-era thought, which probably isn't most modern people's idea of casual fun, especially if they're engaging in escapist fantasy to escape real-life prejudice.

Seriously? I would say that ascribing evil or eugenics era thought to non-existent fantasy races, available in various media, is perfectly fine as casual entertainment (whatever that means).

In fact, if it were possible to take a poll of everyone, I'm fairly sure the majority would agree with me. What you are really saying is that you don't believe that humans can separate fiction from reality, and that even if they can, engaging in that fiction somehow betrays their RL inner monologue. Or at least you find it distasteful.