all 7 comments

[–]UncleWillard56 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You'd think with all the oppression in the real world (except for us white straight guys), they'd have more pressing matters than the fantasy backstory of an evil bunch of elves. It's ironic they're erasing the black elves too, as they seem to want to shoehorn them in to fantasy whenever they make a shitty movie or tv show. Drow Lives Matter!

[–]LordoftheFlies[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Gaming was an easy entry and takeover for the sort of people most likely to be ctrl-left/authoritarian progressive. The hobby naturally gathers those who aren't really welcome anywhere else and those people in turn are open-minded even when they otherwise shouldn't be, even to their own detriment.

And it's not really ironic at all. Remember that drow are villains, and presenting dark-skins as bad guys--especially on the level of a racial majority like drow typically are--is absolutely verboten! If they were a race of Mary Sue/Gary Stu player-insert heroes who can never lose, never do wrong, and represent every flavor of chubbo, moron, and sperg (while still somehow being the most attractive, capable, and popular people in any situation), Paizo would quite probably have bent itself into knots to keep them while removing the aspects that would otherwise have Hasbro's lawyers lubing up their dicks and getting ready for a fucking.

[–]Adventurous_Ad6212 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Sounds like white washing of a table top game. Fucking bigots.

[–]LordoftheFlies[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I've played the game, off and on across various editions, since the late '90's. I have never in all of that time equated dark elves (or orcs) with a real-world race and (as far as I know) neither has anyone I've played with. None of us ever treated slavery (or other nasty things) in the game as anything other than evils to be fought against. And we were all quite capable of knowing and understanding that how dark elves acted was not actually normal in any way, and definitely not something to admire (even if the women did wear some really nice outfits in the artwork :p).

That thread has one comment--from a person who, going by their other comments, apparently has a serious investment in proving why removing dark elves is actually a good thing aside from OGL issues--about how people play the game to escape real-world problems. That comment then goes on to list a bunch of real-world reasons why dark elves are bad. And, as far as I can tell, not even a flicker of awareness over how applying those real-world reasons to fantasy material only serves to bring those very same real-world problems into the game anyway.

[–]Musky 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This doesn't accomplish anything besides pointless virtue signaling. There would be no issues if they were evil white elves.

[–]LordoftheFlies[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Apparently, people can't quite handle the fact that icky slavery is a thing in the setting or that a dark-skinned race participates in it. People also point out the unpleasantly porny nature of dark elves and while I can kind of agree with that in the main, they also seem to forget (or never knew to begin with) that in the primary (Forgotten Realms) lore that inspires the material, Lolth deliberately twisted and corrupted dark elf society. (Partly as a "take that" against the rest of the elven pantheon after being cast out--see what you made me do to these elves who chose me over you, this is your fault--partly because it leaves them more susceptible to being controlled by her directly, and partly because it makes them less likely to leave her influence due to being shunned by other races.)

I like PF, it's been a nice continuation of the rules that I'm most comfortable playing with, and 2e has so far been a decent enough successor. But I think it's also going to be my last run with Paizo. The company has gotten more and more invested in applying IdPol to their material, and while the drow specifically are due more to avoiding potential legal issues with WotC, the discussion around the matter highlights how people with a strong investment in editing, censoring, or outright removing anything that they deem "offensive" are becoming more and more success at twisting the game to suit their ideology. There are least some comments pointing out how ridiculous it is to pretend that things like slavery don't exist because a minute fraction of players (or a bunch more people who never played and never will) have a problem with it, or that having dark skin and being evil is not some sort of subtle dogwhistle against real-world races. But those comments are few and far between.

[–]TaseAFeminist4Jesus 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

K