I can’t enjoy a Quantian post without feeling a little conflicted ever since their long thread about how shitty the F-35 is. When you open the bomb bay doors or fire the cannon you lose the stealth element. Like no shit dumby unless you’re Finnish you tend to lose the stealth element when you’re close enough to somebody to train a bomb-sight or a gun on them.
I get that that otherwise flawed aircraft is a product of the American military-industrial-congressional complex but it’s just an aircraft THAT’S NOT ITS FAULT.
That’s a great point, and I’ll kneel to it because I vividly remember coming across that thread
I just got angry about the F-35 thing because I’m an aviation dork
Wow, this is a trainwreck. Just from the first couple lines:
When I get too fed up with the relative noise level in the media
about whether Charles Murray is or isn’t racist, or James Damore is or
isn’t misogynist,,
If the media you consume is still debating anything about
James Damore in 2021*, that says a lot more about the media you consume
than anything else.
The first big reason nobody thinks of Dungeons and Dragons, the
ultimately nerdy tabletop roleplaying game, as racist
Let me stop you right there, chief: plenty of people think of D&D
as racist! It’s a huge discussion right now in the community! The
company that publishes D&D has been pushing
out changes to how racial bonuses work, specifically
because people think it’s racist.
Edit: as others have pointed out, this is a reprint of an article
from 2018 - mea culpa. That said, I’m still kinda inclined to think that
even in early 2018, if the media you consume was primarily discussing
James Damore, Charles Murray, and the threat of AI - you might be in a
bit of a bubble.
>The company that publishes D&D has been pushing out changes to how racial bonuses work, specifically because people think it's racist.
It also sucks since it limits player options, right now a lot of people avoid making certain race-class combinations even if that's a fun character they want to roleplay as just because they won't get relevant bonuses their class needs from their race.
I just tell my players to pick whatever race and racial stat bonuses they want. They're no powergamers anyway
Remember when DnD had racial limits on what types of multiclassing you were allowed to do? Fun times.
Gnome illusionists/X were the weirdest. (E: for some context, normally, specialist mages (like illusionists) were not allowed to multiclass at all, except for Gnomes who for some weird reason were allowed to multi)
>Gnome illusionists/X were the weirdest. (E: for some context, normally, specialist mages (like illusionists) were not allowed to multiclass at all, except for Gnomes who for some weird reason were allowed to multi)
It was a relic of 1st edition AD&D, where illusionist was an entirely separate class, one which gnomes (but not other demihuman races) were allowed to take.
No, there were no 1st edition equivalents to any other 2nd edition specialist mages. You had "magic user" and "illusionist" as two classes. I think at the time their spell lists were almost completely different too.
One of the charmingly awkward things about 1e AD&D is that it's basically just Gygax writing down all the ad hoc things he came up with during campaigns that the basic D&D rules didn't cover, with zero attempt at ever turning those into broader generic systems. Nothing works the same as anything else.
Ive never played tabletop but from what I've heard + playing Baldurs Gate I found "A Dragon Game" hilarious. the entire class / race page is just:
>“CLASS
>
>
>
>You’re an adventurer.”
>
>
>
>“RACE -
>
>
>
>No.”
Rest is good too:
>When you want to do something and failure would be interesting
or risky you roll dice. If failure wouldn’t be interesting or risky,
you just do it.
To be fair, it's also fun to roleplay a race-class combination exactly because it's not a combination that the game system inherently supports. High Strength Gnome fighters etc.
Limitations can, ironically, create interesting options though obvious race-class builds aren't ideal either. If we're losing customization in one aspect, I hope it gets further replaced in other choices, background, profession etc.
I'll never understand why they didn't just lean in to backgrounds.
The solution is right there - have a racial ability or two (ideally ones that relate to innate magic or biology) and shift the focus toward a more fleshed put background system with more options, more features, and a better system for generating custom background abilities. Bam - you've got storytelling impetus, min-max potential & minimized racism all in a tidy package.
Hell, make it a third thing and call it 'culture' if you need to.
An old system called Ars Mágica had the best system for this sort of thing where stats were anything you wanted but had rules to balance things out. https://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG0205
Also is the best magic system…
> If the media you consume is still debating anything about James Damore in 2021, that says a lot more about the media you consume than anything else.
To be fair this is a repost of an 2018 article. Why you would want to repost it is a mystery.
I meant, why HWFO would repost it. I didn't mean 'why did you post it' sorry, I saw the other discussion.
And, I hate to admit it but themotte [has a point](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/qqrrs9/modeling_the_socioeconomic_future_with_dungeons/hk6hmsa/) (the rest of themotte is shit as usual, and it turns out they also sound like annoying pnp rpg people).
While I completely agree with you and think this article is stupid (when you account for socioeconomic/educational status race plays no part in IQ, eg a black and white family living on the same street have the same average outcome, racists just want to project on to murrayism etc), Damore was a somewhat relevant reference at the time of the article.
>This article was originally published in COSGRRRL on May 14, 2018
Damore’s firing was August ‘17
> If the media you consume is still debating anything about James Damore in 2021, that says a lot more about the media you consume than anything else.
This is almost verbatim what I said to my brother when he flippantly asked how many genders there are.
That's funny, I feel like in Shadowrun half the fun of character creation is the racism/subverting the racism. But there are no classes in SR, maybe that makes a difference. Nothing stopping the big "dumb" lumbering troll from being the brains behind the whole operation.
Except the low mental caps and the absurd costs of ware to boost it, and the availability of said ware.
Oh, and trolls having a terrible spot on the priority list. Where elves can get as low as D.
You can make a smart troll, but it’s easier to make a smart anything else. Hell, even builds trolls are good for could be pulled off better by humans or elves with the right augments. Sure with enough Karma a troll will come out on top, but the human or elf that got a leg up has an easier time branching out.
> Sure with enough Karma a troll will come out on top, but the human or elf that got a leg up has an easier time branching out.
In the context of roleplaying, is it really that important, though? Unless an elf works for Keebler or Santa, he is undoubtedly a smug, racially-superior bastard. We don't always want to play like that. And humans have the disadvantage of being all-too-human.
In role play, no, but people have laughably told me the downside of playing an elf is the racism you experience and racism varies from table to table, mechanics less so.
Humans don’t really have a disadvantage.
Tibbs, the Giant: I'm up to speed.
Niles, the Interrogator: Are you sure? Are there no... large words I should explain to you?
Tibbs, the Giant: Niles, do you think I'm stupid because I'm strong?
Niles, the Interrogator: Well... Not exactly...
Tibbs, the Giant: You think that a strong man cannot be a smart man, eh? The two are somehow mutually exclusive?
Niles, the Interrogator: Well--
Tibbs, the Giant: You're a mindreader, right? How about you jump on in here and have a look around.
Niles, the Interrogator: I-... I rescind my statement. I apologise for my preconceived notions.
And those people are incredibly dumb.
Thinking Dungeons and Dragons is racist for having fictional species that have different inherent characteristics makes no sense. What causal effect does having fictional species have different characteristics have on racism in the real world?
Nothing. It's similar to saying video games are pro-murder for allowing you to kill people in them. And it's not like saying something like "well, it's not necessary for something to causally induce more racism, just having racist ideas is enough" but then I would say, what racist ideas are promulgated by D&D? If you're trying to equate real life "races", which don't scientifically exist to different species in a fantasy world, I would say you're the one being racist.
For example, some people have said orcs are a racist depiction of black people. That seems to me to be a reductive and racist view on black people. What characteristics do they share with black people?
You must be new here.
E: looking at your post history you certainly are lost. At least TIL that Mike cernovich spun off his supplement business and has it run by somebody else. [Do wonder why you feel the need to masturbate while having sex with women however.](https://www.reddit.com/r/moreplatesmoredates/comments/nyr03z/antiaginggeneral_health_tips_to_add_to_my_routine/)
Also for somebody who thinks this is all dumb, you certainly have a lot of strong opinions on fantasy races and real world actors playing them, good luck unpacking all that. (e: [And fyi, racists do call black people orcs](https://web.archive.org/web/20180817201055/https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t34923-12/) NSFW link to archived stormfront page).
You had to scroll pretty damn far to find that post, you probably know enough about Kengan Omega we can discuss it 😂
I don't have any strong opinion on races in D&D, you are making this up, nothing I said had anything to that effect. If you want to play Dungeons and Dragons and have no racial bonuses or play an orc with high intelligence or an elf with high constitution, there's nothing wrong with that, you can play D&D however you want, that's the awesome part of the game.
The issue I have is the claim that the mere existence of having certain fantasy races with different characteristics (like elves having intelligence bonuses) is racist in of itself. As I wrote in my comment, that seems like an absurd claim.
Your very last point is also completely illogical. Orcs have no characteristics in common with black people. Black people do not have green skin or tusked teeth or are taller or more burly than other humans or have a natural inclination for warfare.
Stormfront is calling black people orcs because they DO believe that black people have these characteristics (well, some of them lol), because they're racist white people. The mere existence of orcs being different than humans is not racist against black people because black people are only associated with orcs by racists.
If D&D orcs were a dog whistle for black people, and wore bandanas or gold chains in the same way the Vistani were an obvious allusion to the Romani, then yes, it would be racist, but they're not a dog whistle. I have no problem with WotC editing Vistani who were obviously based on Romani people.
The reason I like the SneerClub is because I hold certain "Rational-adjacent" beliefs on Bayesianism, epistemology, and AI safety. It's always important, in my opinion, to reduce echo chambering yourself as much as possible and seek out opposite viewpoints, not that I necessarily diametrically disagree with SneerClub as I consider myself left-wing and not in favor of the tech-bro libertarianism typically espoused by the LessWrong community. I think it's important for any person to try to not insulate themselves intellectually and be open to rationally coherent points of view.
That being said, I don't view this "Rational" as a huge part of my identity by any means and as you can see from my history I mainly go on a Manga sub or NBA sub anyways. I just thought that this specific claim that Dungeons and Dragons is racist for having different species have different abilities is idiotic, so I decided to comment.
Does that clear it up?
My apologies, I see so many people not in the know of Rationalism who drive by post here I had no idea you actually are 'Of The Basilisk' as they say.
And well, i just skimmed I have no idea what Kengan is, some comic about burly men I guess.
And and orcs in dnd have a lot in common with racial stereotypes about black people. Different skin color (so yes, the green skin here does count in a way) animalistic features, love to breed with humans, dumb, violent, strong etc. Obv we arent talking about real black people here, at least Im not ... weird jokes there. But at least you probably would think that terra formars is racist that is at least something. The ability scores just add an additional layer. (E: reading the linked in the linked article, one of the concerns wizards have with Orc (and Drow) is that they are not as morally and culturally diverse as other races, so that is one of the things they changed, you could argue that calling this a real world racial stereotype, sure, but this is what is being done in context here (literal words [from WoC](https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dnd): "Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated.").
And I said you have opinions about fantasy races and actors playing them, I wasn't just talking about this post here.
And you really need to read better, we aren't talking about the existence of races as a stereotype in dnd here (at least not before you brought up orcs, who unconsciously seem pretty racist to me, same with the banker goblins in HP being antisemitic (they dont have to be a dogwhistle to be racist, racism is on a spectrum)), you waver a bit between saying the existence of races is not racist or saying that the existence of racial modifiers isn't racist. So no it doesn't really clear it up. :).
Anyway, might want to do a bit more thinking about this, you might discover it was not so absurd what we are saying here.
Oddly enough, this conversation reminds me of telling my fellow Dutch people that yes, black pete is racist, even if it isnt intended that way. And no, people arent racist for bringing that up.
(It also reminds me of younger, with even less wisdom soy, who while being against gendered ability bonuses never realized that this might also apply to races (prob because this is very ingrained in rpg systems (I look forward to somebody in 10 years using this remark against me)), also reminds me of the old horribly not being intersectional soy who used class to dismiss other concerns).
E: and your credentials as being into epistemology and leftwing are a bit in doubt when you are watching a homophobic/transphobic yt channel which is shilling Mikes gorilla pills. Might want to think about that a bit more.
http://prntscr.com/1zdlpra (And well, there is also the issue of working for/with cerno).
E: of course I could be wrong, but this is what I based my opinion on after scroll through their yt.
I'm not going to get into this because I've had this argument too many times at this point, but I would highly recommend doing some reading about the actual arguments people have made for this. For instance, I would recommend [this interview with R.A. Salvatore](https://www.polygon.com/22585687/dungeons-dragons-r-a-salvatore-drizzt-black-controversy-race-interview) talking about his own changing views about the character of Drizzt - and the links in that article lead to several very good articles that discuss these ideas further. Suffice to say, this is not as simple as "it's fiction so none of it matters".
Lmao this person seemingly has no experience with D&D and how the
stats work at all. Also the fact that he gives “sub-saharan africans” a
modifier of -5 (which would place them just above actual monkeys) is so
comically racist I struggle to comprehend it.
Bonus points for the fact that trying to link IQ to D&D INT just
shows how ridiculous IQ is, how does a person write this piece
unironically without realizing that
I think 5 INT is the minimum threshold needed to speak a language. So according to this, a pretty substantial number of Africans would be literally too stupid to speak!
iirc this was also the result of some of the IQ tests people did in the African region. Which didn't cause the racists to doubt the tests, nope they just assumed a huge portion of Africans cant speak.
E: long time ago your INT score also limited the amount of languages you could speak. So do you want to know your own IQ-INT score? Just count the languages you can speak.
Reminds me of this instant classic from [Why national IQs do not support evolutionary theories of intelligence](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886909002475):
>We excluded Equatorial Guinea, because the IQ data that were used by Lynn and Vanhanen (2006) were erroneously based on a sample of mentally retarded children from Spain.
Strange how that seems to happen constantly with IQ research done in Africa. [Wonder why](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/thatmitchellandwebb/images/b/b9/Nazis.jpg/revision/latest/top-crop/width/360/height/450?cb=20100726103447)
>In addition, as we have shown, national IQ is hardly distinguishable from other indicators of the developmental status of countries.
Damn. Who could have seen that coming?
Pretty sure one of those tests was the same one where they excluded the results of everyone who scored above 70 on the test because they “didn’t fit” or somesuch BS.
Yeah but don't worry the IQ fanboys will say. These test results made in error no longer are being used. They redid the tests, and found the same results. (E: Subtext for the Rationalists, im saying here if you measure something, and then you find out your measuring tool is broken, you get a new tool and measure again and get the same result, that means you fucked up again (or the person doing the measuring is manipulating the results)).
Lol, I have spent a bit of time in Kenya over the years and it turns out that many of most “sub-Saharan Africans” have at least four languages - fluent in their regional “mother tongue”, English and Swahili as lingua franca, then conversant in at least one of their neighbouring regional languages, often more.
And this is people in the rural villages, not the “educated elite”.
These guys, really, really need to get out more.
Yeah a girl I go to uni with who’s an immigrant from Kenya speaks English, Swahili, four local languages, and now she’s learning the language spoken in my country. Low INT tho
1: It’s promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability
Listen motherfucker, I can’t sleep at night because I have about ten
million and one things I can’t do and as aforementioned I have a pretty
hard fucking time sleeping at night due to having actual and quite
serious health problems, fuck you and your spurious vague fucking
reports on this sub obviously intended to piss me off; I log on here to
have fun, so if you have a genuine fucking issue at least have the
decency to be explicit about it
>user reports:
>1: It's sexual or suggestive content involving minors
Have you ever had a period? Now imagine that but it goes on for months without end. If you want to go toe to toe on this I am in enough pain right now to play this game all fucking night.
First off, in his game world there’s no orcs. Not a one. No dragons
either. The world is conspicuously bereft of monsters. “We still get to
fight, right?” Oh yes, he says, you get to fight other people.
The first big reason nobody thinks of Dungeons and Dragons, the
ultimately nerdy tabletop roleplaying game, as racist, is because it has
different “races” than we do.
Major red flag here: lots of people think D&D is actually kinda
racist, to the point that the publishers have publicly addressed the
accusation.
Edit: I see /u/JohnPaulJonesSoda already pointed this out, and on a
completely different I kinda feel ashamed of myself for knowing about
this in spite of never once having played a game of D&D just on
principle.
> I kinda feel ashamed of myself for knowing about this in spite of never once having played a game of D&D
I mean, this discussion has been in the "nerd zeitgeist" for the last 10-15 years at the least, probably longer in some communities, and has been really coming to the forefront in the last few years for obvious reasons. Which makes it even sadder that this author is apparently totally oblivious to this AND didn't even think to do a quick Google search for "is D&D racist".
I think you misunderstood: I’m ashamed because I never wanted to be involved in the “nerd zeitgeist”; I’m supposed to be cool
But my decisions in life have led me down this cursed path
Man, this sub has no list of rules and a description that's just a bunch of sardonic rambling. If you've got beef with me for not getting it, ban me. This shit's a house of fuckin' mirrors.
Am I reading this right? They claim a D&D score of 10 more or
less correlates with an IQ score of 100. Okay. And then they claim that
essentially the majority of humans fall below 10/100. Somehow forgetting
that that the 100 IQ score is determined by taking the median average
scores of all currently known test scores. This is the quality of mind
who thinks they ought to get to determine who gets to breed?
This is the only good post about IQ and D&D https://twitter.com/quantian1/status/1057413708673155073?s=20
Wow, this is a trainwreck. Just from the first couple lines:
If the media you consume is still debating anything about James Damore in 2021*, that says a lot more about the media you consume than anything else.
Let me stop you right there, chief: plenty of people think of D&D as racist! It’s a huge discussion right now in the community! The company that publishes D&D has been pushing out changes to how racial bonuses work, specifically because people think it’s racist.
Edit: as others have pointed out, this is a reprint of an article from 2018 - mea culpa. That said, I’m still kinda inclined to think that even in early 2018, if the media you consume was primarily discussing James Damore, Charles Murray, and the threat of AI - you might be in a bit of a bubble.
Lmao this person seemingly has no experience with D&D and how the stats work at all. Also the fact that he gives “sub-saharan africans” a modifier of -5 (which would place them just above actual monkeys) is so comically racist I struggle to comprehend it.
Bonus points for the fact that trying to link IQ to D&D INT just shows how ridiculous IQ is, how does a person write this piece unironically without realizing that
Listen motherfucker, I can’t sleep at night because I have about ten million and one things I can’t do and as aforementioned I have a pretty hard fucking time sleeping at night due to having actual and quite serious health problems, fuck you and your spurious vague fucking reports on this sub obviously intended to piss me off; I log on here to have fun, so if you have a genuine fucking issue at least have the decency to be explicit about it
Orcs arent people…
This is why I use point buy
Major red flag here: lots of people think D&D is actually kinda racist, to the point that the publishers have publicly addressed the accusation.
Edit: I see /u/JohnPaulJonesSoda already pointed this out, and on a completely different I kinda feel ashamed of myself for knowing about this in spite of never once having played a game of D&D just on principle.
And why wouldn’t we!
This guy’s mum rolled 3 WIS. Actually most rationalists are low WIS, it’s just in their genes.
This is why you’re supposed to moderate your glue sniffing.
Open D&D handbook file.
Ctrl+F for “race”.
Replace with “species”.
Print the new edition.
If you think that bird people being more agile than humans is racist, you’re not my first pick to greet the aliens when they get here.
Am I reading this right? They claim a D&D score of 10 more or less correlates with an IQ score of 100. Okay. And then they claim that essentially the majority of humans fall below 10/100. Somehow forgetting that that the 100 IQ score is determined by taking the median average scores of all currently known test scores. This is the quality of mind who thinks they ought to get to determine who gets to breed?