💥💥QUESTION OF THE VID💥💥 The comments I read today were from people who had less than stellar TTRPG experiences. Have you had similar experiences and if so, how did you deal with them?
As you know the N word was an euphemism for 2 words Nergrod and Blackie. As you know when my Black friends call Cracker or Honky they're being manly form of teasing.
I found myself in a ugly little abusive and gaslighting group who used gaming as a vehicle to propagate slurs and other derisive stereotyping as well as some even uglier overall traumatic weaponizing of RPGs. Bad enough to have my anxiety condition become also a PTSD condition. If it were a one off of a very unhealthy gaming group would be one thing. Except, it is an all too common experience. DnD does seem to attract that sort, too popular to avoid it I suppose. But not isolated to DnD either. Gaming is not their agenda, but simply a tool in their agenda. Rather like the ugliest side of dating in a way - I had to learn the red flags of the truly dangerous predators in society who were using gaming as a their lure. In fact, I think the trend of such people abandoning preying upon the club scene for preying upon the gaming scene instead is growing ever more dangerously common. Safety is an illusion. Nothing is truly safe. Thinking it totally safe is the first step to becoming their prey. I now am very very careful. A piece of me was taken in a way comparable to rape, though at least that didn't happen - not in the classic sense at least.
This is why I long since stopped caring about D&D and why gatekeeping is NEEDED. I NEVER got looked at as a black man playing D&D until these modern, "tolerant times."
I was shocked to remember that during all of my college years, I gamed with a “black” man. Strangely, I only knew him as “Jack” and didn’t think about it any further.
Love being called a racist because I don't care about what you are, but who you are. Most people are welcome at my tables unless they show me otherwise.
As a dorky white kid, the discrimination I experienced was along the lines of "geek culture" being inferior to "normal / sports culture". Being told to grow up and stop playing games and start playing sports. Being told that what I was doing was nerdy, dorky, geeky. As I aged through my teen years, I had gamer buddies that stopped gaming because of "image". Fortunately, I was never good at sports, so I didn't really have a "jock" image to worry about, LOL! It all worked out fine though, as I found "my people" around the gaming table.
And again, you nailed it. People behind their phone or computer screen have the audacity to tell someone what they should say, or think or be. Take your victory lap, you won, Sir. Thank you, Servant for what you do, and I really like where you are going and taking this channel. Don’t you give in. Don’t you back down. You are making a difference
Sir, I will not warn you again: well thought out and explained positions that are reasonable and logical will not be tolerated on the internet... that's not what we do out here buddy! 🤣 lol Appreciate your channel keep it up.
So much to address. 1. Urrelles = Yur-rell-less So you were saying it right most of the time. 2. New Jersey cops have a special place in my family's heart. All of my family and friends in the east coast constantly state how they are guarenteed to be stopped by a cop when passing through New Jersey. And when you interact with them, they just ooze mistrust towards you. Now anywhere else in the nation I have the same good experiences as you. I used to be a security guard, so chatting it up with police is no issue…… except in New Jersey. 3. I wont be letting up. I have been calling out these crazy evil people for who they are more and more. My tolerance of the "racism of low expectation" is gettin to me and im speaking openly on how i hate it. Malcom X's description of the liberal vs the conservative is absolutely true in this day and age. The liberal has a controlling issue masked in virtue signals. If you deviate from their mantra, they attack viciously. 4. The last woman's comment is also something i experienced when i went to a Black University. I was told i was "talking white", and just made fun of for being true to myself. Luckily most of the students at Langston University were from Detroit and Chicago; so my experience was focused on to those people's culture and not all of Black America in general. But still a very bad experience to see the glorification of ignorance, and to be looked down by your own whom you were eager to bond with initially.
About "talking white" heard that one a lot over the years..... and the best I can figure out... is that the origin is from "activists" who claim they want to "support" the "black community"..... by encouraging them to insulate themselves from the rest of society. I don't think it's actually "low expectation".... it's encouraging people to hold themselves to a set of ack-bassward standards that make them unable to interact with society as a whole. These "activists" are trying to sabotage society for their own enrichment. One of the most hilarious stories I can say about "reverse racism".... came from my interacting with an Army Colonel at a cultural appreciation event. We had a group of soldiers sitting at a table and he asks us to talk about our cultural heritage one at a time. I don't remember what everyone said. Two specific ones stuck in my mind. the one girl who was sitting next to me looked like she was a Native American.... when he asked her... she literally said she couldn't tell him about her cultural heritage since didn't actually know what ethnic groups her ancestors were from. Then he gets to me... tries to skip because I'm a white guy, so I give people a quick story about how some of my ancestors were British, some Vikings... and way back in the day the British and Vikings hated each other. Obviously not what he was looking for but the Colonel appreciated that I gave him a coherent story. Now thinking back I wonder.... the Colonel was a white guy.... was his attempt at skipping me a reflection of his own personal sense of worth based on his own heritage? hmm.... really makes you wonder.
@@marhawkman303 The colonel probably had a bit of ethnomasochism going on. It's this new flavor of White guilt in which they just hate themselves. Funny thing is people like this are more like White Supremist, since they literally believe everything in the world is a White creation and that White culture dominates all. So even though their viewpoint is out of guilt, it is still rooted in a supremacy mindset.
@@marhawkman303 The "talking White" thing i experienced was in the late 90s in college and sometimes today too. But back then it wasnt an activist nonsense thing. It was literally Black people lowering themselves in some illogical nonsense that was against being educated. Alienating themselves like you mentioned. Black American culture had a real big problem with trying to be monolithic. Having variety seemed frowned upon. Today it is ok to have a DnD Black person, a rocker Black chick, a computer tech Black man, a Black person who liked sushi. Back in the 90s, it seemed like you had to be a cookie cutter man. You had to like rap and R&B. You had to like soulfood. You had to talk a certain way. If you didnt, you were weird. When i was at Langston it was really bad. So bad it made me avoid Black people years afterwards, due to the amount of grief i got for being a dude from California. Luckily that changed and i got lots of exposure to variety minded Black people years later. Social media helped break that. But in the 90s it was bad in certain areas. Chicago, Oaklahoma, and Detroit seemed god awful.
@@Urrelles Yeah, It really seems like a certain.... subset of the "community" is trying to foist that on others and I can't imagine there being any good intentions. Then again... there's that old theory that it was radical black activists who killed MLK for trying to stop the race wars. Some people WANT there to be divisions between races, and loathe the idea of people living together in peace.
As a white CIS male (lol), it's ok to be a bit reductioinist about my experience... at least until you know me as the person I am... Anyway: I had a good conversation the other day: race/gaming - trad anglo exposure to this, but what I really want to see - especially in TTRPG's is the return of Kara Tur, Anhcorome et al - written by players from those cultures - not strictly due to representation or even "authenticity" (it's D&D) - but for the same reason I like reading someone like Murakame - because it's someone from a world I don't have experience of, because they're from a different culture and part of the world - one that I don't have a grounding in. It's how as a 45 year old British guy I can read about a teenage Jewish girl in the 1940s and learn from her world. We share so much stuff just by being people... Everybody poops.
Re. one of the comments about not seeing representation in gaming art until quite late, I would suggest that the reason people didn't see wider representation in D&D art earlier was because they weren't looking. The characters in the artwork in D&D module B3 first published in 1980, for example. The D&D Rules Cyclopedia and indeed the Mystara product line in the '80 are good examples.
As far as I'm concerned, a person's a person, no matter the color of their skin. The second we start drawing attention to what makes us different is the second we've lost as a species. We need to concentrate on what makes us similar, because we're all brothers and sisters, and we're all we've got in this life.
Brother SoS - once again giving us food for thought. Respect to you from this Anglo-Irish greybeard from across the pond, and to your commenters for sharing their experiences. We may not 100% agree on everything, but we most certainly can, as you say, be cool.
I may not always agree with you, but I appreciate your openness and willingness to share your experience. More than that, you've created a platform for other people to do the same. It seems like so many people have forgotten how to simply listen, you know? When someone is telling you who they are, what they've experienced, and how they view things you LISTEN! Advocates are fine, but when someone feels that their opinion is more valid than the group they are "advocating" for, there's a problem. It takes the attention away from the subject and turns it towards the advocate and, as you say, it's evil.
I think that my biggest critique of the "woke" movement is the way that it encourages people to treat others. I would certainly agree that opposing injustice is a noble endeavor. However, it often seems like being "woke" is really more about tearing people down than building people up. Less about love than about having an acceptable direction to aim vitriol. Just my two cents. Thanks for the video, Servant.
Yeah as far as I'm concerned, the definition of woke is 'politically and socially aware' - everyone seems to have their own interpretation of the word though, which makes discourse a challenge.
@@torenatkinson1986 Indeed, it is a challenge! It's interesting to me that most philosophy debates begin with a debate and then agreement on the definitions before productive discourse can be done. I think we as a culture (myself included, more often than I'd like) tend to talk past each other rather than to each other. If I play by your definition, I think we can find some common ground. And I imagine that you'd also agree that living in a constant state of rage is a bad thing. Either way, I appreciate the way you approached this. Thanks.
Another great video Servant I’m grateful for all your hard work and how it makes me try to think about how I’m acting in the TTRPG space. Looking forward to the next chapter.
I started playing D&D (and The Fantasy Trip) in the late '70s, and we didn't care what race, sex, orientation, or creed you were, so long as you wanted to play D&D, and weren't a complete jerk, you were in! When I played D&D in West Germany in the mid '80s, I served, and played with people of numerous "races", and again, the priority was always on the desire to play, and the only politics that were brought up were those of the fantasy world we were playing in (my Druid once subverted the campaign we were in, and recruited the rest of the party into waging a full scale Guerilla war against the Theocracy of the Pale). I guess my point is that I feel that often, people get wrapped up in perceived, imagined, or programed slights, instead of having fun with their friends, crafting an epic story that they will be talking to each other about for decades. Thanks for the thoughtful videos. I'm happy to make up for one un-sub, with my subscription. Keep on speaking "Truth To Power".
I feel like I would almost give $5 to show respect to your hat, but this is thanks for the intelligent and engaging video. Subbing and hitting the bell.
So much to comment on here--first off, I rolled my first set of dice back in 82 at a boy scout summer camp, for that game you refuse to mention. Mind you, I'm white and so was everyone in our gaming group. We would have loved to have you at our table. As part of a magnet program, we went to a school in South Dallas that was over 90% black, and none of the black kids there wanted anything to do with TTRPGs, be it D&D (the game you refuse to mention), Top Secret, Gama World, Traveler, Paranoia, or anything else we were up to. So my hats off to you for what you're doing. My own personal take on woke-ism---there's a type of kindness that can kill, that can divide where divisions wouldn't happen without it, that can disconnect folks when they say they want people to come together. Woke-ism and it's ripple effects actually prevents the more sophisticated conversations we really need to be having from occurring. I could get really long with this, but chief, you're not the only one seeing it. Best and cheers!
Hi! I was the third comment you read, and I wasn't expecting my comment to be read out, but I'm very happy I got to wake up to see this. I've had a rough time lately, but feeling like I made a contribution that was relatable to people really did help. ^^ Also, to clarify, yes, I am American.
+1 for having the moral courage to talk about an important topic often weaponized by bad actors in our hobby. It shows you are clearly someone worth standing in the trenches with. Bravo Good Sir!
Living up North it is tough for me to convince people I played rpgs with black players in Alabama in the 80's and 90's, including being dmed by a black guy playing Marvel. Keep it up. I love this video.
RPG Elite first and foremost love your content keep up the good work. I can honestly say I am a TTRPG addict and TH-cam creator no joke, and you may be to, ask yourself this do you find yourself looking at new dice only to find you are locked in a inner struggle trying to justify why you need a new set of dice when you already have 200 sets at home? Do you experience a twinge of excitement when you see a new RPG that catches your eye and for a second you have a micro game session in your head, and you cannot help yourself and you must own this RPG! if you answered yes to either one of these questions face it you are a gamer. which also is a huge indication you enjoy using your imagination which is magic all unto itself because if you love TTRPG's you are sucked into a good story and find it hard to want to come back down to earth. That is the magic of our hobby, People who either do not understand what fantasy is or lack an immersive imagination and are so eager to be offended by everything and everyone around them. Are trying to destroy our hobby still have failed to grasp the concept that the tabletop experience is about letting your imagination run wild without barriers and political ideologies. And in these crazy times we live in it seems what is wrong is now expected to right and what is right is considered wrong. If a day ever came that all the TH-cam TTRPG creators could get together and game, you are most certainly welcome to my table sir keep up the great content and game on my friend.
On point as usual. Hope to see this channel & these ideas gain more traction going forward. I make it a point to keep talking points like this at the front gate of any gathering place I build as a ward against evil. Works wonders. I highly recommend it.
There is a black guy who has designed a few really cool TRPGs in the past and he recently did a Kickstarter for his game Godsend Agenda 3rd edition. He had never put anything political in any previous game so I figured this would be no different. I was wrong. He put the BLM Fist logo (a communist symbol) on the cover page and wrote an introduction saying how he wrote this game for SJWs and BLM people and this is just a supers rpg with a lot of mythology in the setting. I was blown away. Makes me wonder how American people can fall for all this wokeist propaganda and not even question the source of where woke really came from.
Great video as always. As a comic book creator in Sweden I have been dealing a lot with the woke culture in the comic book scene. It definatelly still exist, but i think it was at its worst around the middle of the 2010:s. The leftleaning feminist scene was unfortunately very hateful. And it was of course unfortunate. As a white man, that wanted equality (of course) but didn't buy into the sect like mentality, I became somewhat of a pariah for other members in the creating scene.
I didn't have it so badly as others growing up. My Negro friends knew I was a nerd but were never interested in RPG's. My nerdy friends were/are mostly Caucasian (numbers, right?). I've always felt at home in the RPG community, because we care about the games, the stories they create and the camaraderie that resulted. I used that MLK quote in my yearbook. I strive to live by that quote, but I've let myself get distracted by the cultural climate in an attempt to be open and understanding. Be well-meaning, and all that. That's been a mistake. This channel has helped me realize that.
How did this "orcs are metaphors for black people" thing start? Tolkien himself wrote of orcs as a metaphor for the horrors of war, i.e. in any war there were some "orcs" on both sides. And in the late 80s, Dragon Magazine described orcs as "the ultimate social Darwinists". It made the orcs sound more like Nazis than anything else. I'm going to continue to run orcs in my games as old-school violent and hateful bad guys that want to either kill or enslave those weaker than them.
Let me sum up. The caring people got mad that in Curse of Strahd (Dracula adventure) in the unmentionable game. (UMG) used the wrong word to describe his Gypsy helpers without the knowledge, consent, or input from the Romani (spelling). This meant the game painted the whole culture as evil. Minor internet uproar and WOTC changed the wording and some of other characteristics on the NPCS. Then Orcs were brought as being Mongols which was bad but did not general the heated debate. So, change them to orcs being black which got the debate really going. So, Orcs are Chaotic Evil and Orcs mean black people so WOTC is evil racist etc. We must change all the default alignments in the UMG books. Which is strange. And I got my nose swatted by some mods by mentioning or asking "Did any one even read page 7 of UMG MM". (on page 7 Alignment is mentioned and a DM can change the alignment at will.) And got some temporary bans for the question. So WOTC instead of changing the wording on page 7, decided in all future hardcover monster description have to either say "Typically Alignment" or "Any Alignment" Which is funny because I read the Dragonlance books in 80s, and evil minions are now only Typically LE. Also, I was reading the debate and some people where bring up papers written in 1899 (18 is NOT a Typo) which proved Tolkein was racist. After that I just dropped out the debate because I can't even follow that crazy train.
@@RottenRogerDM I see. So the whole thing basically happened because of the internet being beset by Eternal September more or less. It just...figures. But thanks for the rundown on how this silliness came about. I'm still going to run orcs as sort of a stand-in for Nazis with the methodology of outlaw bikers. And there's not a damn thing any of the people you mentioned can do about it.
I love you man. First, because you’re a brother in Christ. Second, because you speak the truth that is oftentimes difficult for a fair skinned dude to say without being called a racist. It should not be that way, and we should never back down from speaking truth about anything, but the reality is that the race card gets played all the time, and guys such as yourself are an edifying force who encourage us all. So thank you, brother.
I was not the target audience for this video but i still watched and am commenting bcuz otherwise youtube will hide you and I'll miss my dang Vaesen game when you do it. Peace n love, my dude.
I'm old enough to remember when D&D was new and in 40+ years of playing never associated people of color with Orcs until people started complaining about it. I don't recall anyone I ever played with of saying anything resembling that and honestly people were alot more casually racist 40 years ago. Keep up the good work and stand by what you believe.
MAN, SoS dropping a truth bomb video at almost 1am? I'll lose sleep for that. It never fail to make me grit my teeth to hear about people claiming to elevate others' voices out of one side of their mouth and then police their speech out of the other. Just... How does it not click for them? How does that not rock their foundation even just a little bit? I've run into similar-ish situations at open (online) game tables: quotas or barriers based on gender, ethnicity, sexuality and such nonsense, but I just pick up stakes and leave. Thanks as ever, Servant. You're a beacon in dire times. Burn hot, burn *bright.*
I have only been in the TTRPG space for a short time. But as a black man in his 40s, I have seen my share of back biting racism from my own people. But this new wave woke thinking is horrid. I respect other people as long as they respect me. Hell, there are black people that don't like Nerd life, and that's cool, but the woke mob want YOU to change for them. That's not cool. We can disagree, but shouldn't disrespect.
I think of all the things I have heard you say the one thing I disagree the most about is that the cops have a job to protect us. We also have much different world views yet we disagree and agree back and forth on issues. And you seem to be okay with people who do. I wish we had more people like you in that regard.
@@MisterWebb They make arrest based on what they are told happened and they set up prosecutors to cash out such claims. They are also used as a legalized form of violence when need be. This is what I see the police as. The causes of crime are not often deterred by the threat of punishment and at times are even a reaction against the established law. Some crimes especially with career criminals are committed by the criminal to protect themselves from the law.
I first played D&D in 1980 in D&D Club in my middle school. One of my fellow players was Kevin, a black friend of mine. Throughout my time in school there were other black schoolmates who played in the Club, including a girl (who also read comic books!!!)
So, highly distilled Liberal wing (not left wing) identity politics is what "wokism" is? I think that one of the problems with terms like wokism is that there is not a clearly defined definition of them, like from the dictionary. My observation of the use (and perhaps misuse) of the word "woke" and it's "ism" is that what exactly it means depends on who is using it. How, and in what context. I have been accused of "wokism" (always online of course: trolls have stepped out of the pages of fantasy lit and ttrpg and are now denizens of the byways of the info highway) anyway, I have been accused of wokism when I point out that, in fact, the Civil War WAS fought over slavery (or, the right of a state to decide whether the institution of slavery should be perpetuated by law and custom). Or that red lining was a clear example of the thing that could be called "institutional racism". Yeah, that's woke... Ok dude. I am a nearly 60 white dude. I grew up in a (just above working) middle class household--where saying the N word was a far greater sin than was the F word--in a place where there were plenty of folks, (Latino and asian) that did not fall within the vaguely defined "Caucasian" label, but I dont remember seeing someone who was "black" in my hometown until I was in high school. I always respected my dad for putting his foot down about racial slurs (and in that little farm town you did not have to dig down far to find a bigot or three). Nowadays people have said dad was "acting woke" (what would "acting" woke be, proto woke?). Now, I look at the stuff that WOTsbro produces that alot of people say has "woke" all over it, and I see a corporation trying to "CYA" it's brand, so that they don't lose alot of market share if they are accused of racism. Having policies that look like wokism is easier to deal with than allowing material they publish to possibly be labeled as racist. The people at the top of The Company That Shall Not Be Named are most concerned about their bottom line. The white women that lambasted that one black dude (in your comments ) as a conservative probably exist in a silo so separated from reality as to be downright antiseptic. Be all that as it may, if "wokism" is liberal identity psychobabble, the right in this country has its own form of wokism: Florida banning scads of books so kids won't be tempted to say "gay" is every bit as wrong headed. I think the word "race" is the wrong word to use to describe elves, dwarves, orcs, etc, in an rpg, but I don't think that opinion is woke: I have had that opinion since the 80s. And there are rpgs that changed that a long time ago, such as Palladium (that uses the word "species") relative latecomers Pathfinder, that use the term "ancestry". Anyway, this comment is long and just getting longer. Keep putting out such thought provoking content. Cheers.
I'd love to hang out with you. Pragmatic, realistic and down to earth. I honestly can't say I'd want to hang out with too many people these days. Take that for what it's worth, and keep doing what you do.
@@RPGElite hmm... that phrase you used. "Calling evil good, and good evil." That's in the Book. And you know what the Book says it's a sign of. The Judgement is coming soon. One of the other things it mentioned to watch out for was "science falsely so called". Well, this is the old Greek concept of science, which was basically just accumulated knowledge, but still, it fits what is going around today. There's also that "pharmakeia" reference. that stuff's become way more popular in these last few years.
I've been in the hobby since it hit the market; I can't remember exactly when I first heard the 'orcs are black people' idea (it was only after several years of RPG'ing), but I've never thought of it as anything but stupid and racist (redundant terms perhaps, but there it is). Tolkien's orcs talked like lower-class Englishmen, not African-Americans, but whatever. Keep up the good work; these vids are like a breath of fresh air. That particular line from MLK is one of the few quotes from anyone anywhere that reliably bring me goosebumps when I hear it.
As a African American. I watch the the thing that shall be not be named community videos and content for reference for my own rpg I do for African American teens. You never see a deep look into African culture, or african monsters. I did my own research and found awesome African legends. No one touches or looks into the content.
Agree. There are so many legends and myths from the African continent that most people wouldn't be able to keep up. Even I myself had a hard time period I was running a Marvel superheroes game I wanted to use the Western African deities as part of my story Arc. Greek and Roman gods have been used to death. But taking that fresh look at a whole different pantheon really brings new life to a game.
@@phillee427 I use Shango, Ogun, Eshu, Anansi, and several others as spirits, not gods. There IS A LOT of material that makes the Forgotten Realms look small.
Same here. I think of Negro as an almost archaic term that has fallen out of use in favor of black or Black. But it is not the N-word. I liv3 in Canada now, and here some white students seem to think Negro is the N-word, which strikes me as sad. However, maybe this reflects a generational divide? Still, does nobody remember the United Negro College Fund advertisements from the late 1970s or early 1980s?!? I also like how the title of this video reminds me of an article from a 1963 issue of Life magazine or a non-fiction book title from that era. I often find the term "woke," when used as a derogatory term, like calling someone a reactionary, libtard or other carichature, to be over the top. However, I appreciate the critiques made here. Appreciation of nuance and openmindedness are key, and our man here seems to be preaching that.
I really enjoy your videos. I live in a country without black people so I never knew that rpgs were less popular with blacks. I find your perspective really eye-opening and I know its difficult to go against ones "tribe". I can't really think of many hobbies more inclusive than role-playing. Being someone else is literally part of the experience.
While not black, I have been told that I'm great for making tabletop games more diverse. I just wanna play ttrpgs without being some small bastion for diversity
I must be a unicorn in the TTRPG community. I'm from Brooklyn, NY and I was introduced to D&D (1e and 2e) in the 80s. My D&D group consisted of nothing but nerdy black teenagers who still had time to play sports and other games when we weren't playing D&D. As a matter of fact, most in the group had girlfriends who liked the fact that we were not running the streets and congregated at a friends house for 5 to 6 hours playing a game that involved dice not being used for gambling. 😄 I say all this because I look at D&D now, and while I'm all for being inclusive and having representation, some of these groups are taking it a bit too far. Just another brother adding his 1 cent to the conversation. You have a great day RPG Elite. 😉
Cancel culture has wired me to the point where I'm quite frankly hesitant and maybe even a bit afraid to talk about these things. I'm a white male, and just saying that is already throwing up a red flag for someone I'm sure, but I sympathize with your experience and those of the people who are sharing theirs. I hate that the current social climate is so blind to their own ignorance and how their misguided, albeit with good intentions, actions only divide us. POC isn't a very "inclusive" term, because it specifically otherizes anyone who isn't white and labels them. I can't speak on behalf of that experience because the closest I have is being ginger, but that's quite obviously different. However, I can say that I don't like unsolicited labels being placed on me, so I'd have to assume others share those feelings. Someone's race is important, but generalization dehumanizes the individual, and that can only be seen as a negative. Anyways, just wanted to say I really respect you speaking about these things and sharing the voices of those who commented. I think it can be validation for those who share this experience, and for us who don't, it's valuable insight into a world we don't see every day. Love the vids buddy. I'll stick around for the next mic drop.
Well, only albino people and some Irish are paler than me so that tells you where I am on the race meter. Have I experienced bullying for being into uncool hobbies? Yes. Playing RPGs since the late 80s, Battletech since 1990, anime since before I knew it was even anime or that my cartoons were originally in Japanese and were poorly dubbed, JRPGs on the consoles (Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System was my introduction there). I've been called a satanist (even though I was probably more into the new testament than my accusers at the time), gay (I wore jogging pants and was overweight), a gay pretender (because I stopped wearing jogging pants), a freak (I embraced that one and became "The Gundam Freak" for quite a long time), and so on. Was I assaulted for any of it? A couple of times. How did I handle it? Not as well as I could have. I persisted. I tucked away the anger, walked or hobbled away, and shouldered on. Pretty sure that is what has led me to being a bitter, single, cat-daddy in my 40s working for an even older crusty white guy at a gaming store. Which got me and him bad press as people posted online that he fired the young lady who was working for him to hire another crusty white guy. Actually she was covering for her husband who had health issuesand she left to go work at a big company where she makes enough money to support them both. Since then I have been targeted by cancel culture (for being anti-gay, which I'm not at all) and called a C.H.U.D. (which I think is the white guy equivalent of calling someone "Uncle Tom" these days). That being said, I still persist, as opposed to my brother who shot himself despite it seemed he had so much going for him. Life is strange. I carry on and try to find good people. I love seeing creativity and what people make of their lives. I also try to find people to pass on what I've learned to in gaming and hobbying. I may not have children but I can still have disciples of a sort. I think I've found a good person on this channel so kudos to you. Unless you go woke or violate a few other taboos which I think would see you in an asylum or prison (although I don't know what is legal or illegal where you live), only death, blindness, or dementia will make me stop watching your videos. I find ones like the one you posted today fascinating as an intellectual look into a side of the argument that is almost universally shouted down without being listened to up here in Canada. Thank you. I mean that. It shows me there are still open minds out there and there is hope. And your comment about finding people on the elevator going up and passing by those on the one going down. Man, I wish someone had drilled that into my head 35 years ago. Great advice.
Followup extra: I studied animation in college. I got a LOT of flak from both other students and the teachers for being into anime while I studied animation. It was regarded as "trashy" and "a temporary foreign trend" and not to be imitated. That was the middle 2000s. They wanted me to watch the Cal-arts cartoons instead. I never switched and I'm not sorry for that. I still love anime and tokusatsu. Henshin heroes and giant robots are a man's romance as far as I'm concerned.
I've been catching what I can from your channel. TH-cam notifications suck. It's good to hear that people are still unwavering about the orc thing. I found it more offensive that people read the descriptions and thought, "That's definitely black people." Sounded more like a self tell to me. I had played fantasy rpgs for decades at the point where this became an "issue," and that thought had never come to my mind.
Phenomenal video, very good points were raised and I couldn’t have expressed them better myself. The only thing I want to add is, how can the woke think that orcs and dark elves are supposed to be stand ins for “black” people when their primary settings back in the day of Grayhawk and forgotten realms, both had said “black” people already in them?
20:53 So. I been here. As a 'white' Gay Nerd who is in a relationship which a 'black' Gay Nerd, we had to have THE TALK. He tried to do the whole "this trait is an isolating difference making stuff utterly non-comparable." As in Gay relationships are utterly isolated from 'normal relationships.' To which I just boggled. My sexuality is no more isolating than my eye color. I don't belong to a group focusing upon Hazel color eyes. I don't have a membership card to the "brown hair club." My being a NERD is more defining about me even while it does not define me. Is it possible that certain inalienable traits might make one susceptible to many more NEGATIVE experiences? Oh hell yeah. As a gay man who don't seem to swish or go gonzo-macho, I find myself looked at askance by other gay men in my time. And being a nerd while gay, oh wow, that don't help. And with ny having a disability as well as mental health struggles really help in getting shoved in a box too. So I know boxes and being forced into one - or several. That was a hard talk. Mostly as I wanted to carefully work my way around to suggesting he stop the affectation of sounding like a caricature as well at times because I knew damn well that a guy who can go on and on about Ghost Rider and Marvel in general and as such then forgets to do the affectation while doing such, only talked that way as learned behavior. Mostly unconsciously, I dunno. Weird day for me.
'Human beings just like anybody else'- jeebus if more folks could hear and live that, +1 to all your save throws! PS- How's Vaesen look? I'd be hip to hear from you if/when you play it out for real. And yes, I'm old enough to use words like hip and groovy 8>D
Thank you, this needed to be said. I’m lucky as I’ve not needed to go through any of this. I do feel this needs to be said if you see racism and sexism at your table and in the game, I feel it says more about the people at and running the game. Or maybe it says something about yourself and what you want to see. (Speaking about the person offended for other people by the term Negros). If you are playing with the right group for you these are non issues
I’m glad you shared these comments. The TTRPG community is being infested by wokeness, especially the game you won’t mention. Our pastor is doing a series on wokeness and how it has roots in communism and is evil in of itself.
The world would be boring without people who say things that are "controversial" or "triggering". Their statements make you think. For a certain percentage of humanity, thinking is like poison. They want to be spoon fed their opinions and have anything that triggers their Cognitive Dissonance washed away. Personally, I like being challenged by someone else's opinion...It makes me use my brain and I like that.
Well first, that's not a company. It's a game. 😉 Just playing. Actually, I have not had any direct dealing with company. I've never given them a dime of my money.
@@RPGElite Okay. But why is it the game that you never mention? Or am I barking up the wrong tree, and it's another game? Or you just don't like the game? I'm 53 and I'm rediscovering the hobby of my youth, I have a soft spot for Tunnels and Trolls, as it was my first ,D&D my second, which I also loved playing. I was just interested in your back story, why there should be a game that sticks in your craw. If it's personal and you don't want to talk about then fair enough...
IIRC he mentioned in a video that, once he reaches a certain subscriber threshold (don't remember the number), he'll do a video explaining this. So recommend this channel to all your friends!
Most of the time I ran recruitment as a kid the issue was it being stigmatized religiously. I lost a LOT of potential players of all stripes from that.
There’s nothing wrong with the word “Negro.” I’m black and don’t see any issue with you expressing what you’re trying to explain. 😂 How else are you supposed to explain what you mean without words?
I gotta agree with you on some points . When when the woke left started calling orcs racist I thought oh Lord . How are orcs racist ? They're mythical creatures , the time the term was used was in the epic poem Beowulf and it was kinda of a generac term applied to any undead creature. It wasn't based on any humans
This video speaks volumes of rational logical thought. You speak with the high intellect as someone like MLK. He would not support this wokeism culture. I hope your video inspires everyone to question everything and to think logically
To your question: I have been involved in tabletop gaming since the early 1970s, experienced and participated in the emergent TTRPG genre (when the only published game in town was - actually, I forgot the name [heh]), and the hobby as whole was conspicuously mostly (but only mostly, take note) white, mostly male. I'll quite frankly admit that back then the only thought I gave to the notion of broader demographic inclusion in TTRPG boiled down to, "where are the girls at?" When the girls (and other formerly under represented groups) did starting showing up, I never personally witnessed, experienced, had to mediate or mitigate any too-egregious situations revolving around attempts at discrimination. Interpersonal fallings out, of course, but seldom over externals, just character. As I got older still, gaining the confidence (or self-delusion) sufficient to take on gamemastering, I didn't consciously think to myself, "I'm going to run an inclusive, 'woke' table and hit everyone on the nose with it, too," I just did the do, and people figured it out. Gamers are smart, right?
Well I appreciate what you're trying to do now I admit I'm not black but I do enjoy learning about other cultures and yes role-playing games are definitely a good way for us to walk in the other person's shoes. You're beginning comment using the word "negro" now I would say it's an outdated term about when you're talking about read about culture and history one must admit that term has been used probably far longer than other terms to describe the black race although I would prefer to just all call people the human race. But one must acknowledge that unfortunately human beings as a whole we have a tendency to separate ourselves but how can we stop unless we learn how to see where each are coming from.
I understand that we are "POCs" only some of the time (i.e. complaining about whites) but not others (e.g. college admissions). I tell you now that I had no problem finding Orientals playing TTRPGs. I guess gaming is one of those "white adjacent" things.
"Colour", when you see color spelled that way, that commenter is probably not from the US. Most likely Great Britain, which is a country with actual word police.
Maybe it is that I grew up in the early 1970s, but I find that very little would have me unsubscribe. I think those who unsubscribed would find me much less of an ally even if I agreed with half of what they said - mostly as it would not be long before I was given that same shunning and "scarlet letter" treatment. I can't for the life of me tell if it all is simply accidental or if someone's intent (maybe portions of each), but I hate how too many out there feel like a spontaneous performance of an ugly stereotype of what would otherwise be a good collection of qualities in someone else.
Thankfully, I've never had to deal with woke BS when playing by games. I will say that I do agree with the idea in games that it's better to have evil organisations than evil races. An evil race isn't interesting to me and it blocks players from playing that race in good campaigns. Evil organisations are much more interesting and way more fun to fight. It's more fun to beat up Nazis and the KKK than too beat up orcs and goblins. That's my opinion anyway. We can all agree though that comparing orcs to black people is silly.
You know, the current generation is missing out that they can't randomly shout out. "Free the man, Free James Brown!" and have every know what that is all about. Just saying!
Just got recommended this and as a white as can be person IV noticed it a bit… I’m a wod fan ( same company that made exalted!) but I’ve always considered it to be good with representation from races, gender and sexuality
💥💥QUESTION OF THE VID💥💥 The comments I read today were from people who had less than stellar TTRPG experiences. Have you had similar experiences and if so, how did you deal with them?
As you know the N word was an euphemism for 2 words Nergrod and Blackie. As you know when my Black friends call Cracker or Honky they're being manly form of teasing.
I found myself in a ugly little abusive and gaslighting group who used gaming as a vehicle to propagate slurs and other derisive stereotyping as well as some even uglier overall traumatic weaponizing of RPGs.
Bad enough to have my anxiety condition become also a PTSD condition.
If it were a one off of a very unhealthy gaming group would be one thing.
Except, it is an all too common experience.
DnD does seem to attract that sort, too popular to avoid it I suppose.
But not isolated to DnD either.
Gaming is not their agenda, but simply a tool in their agenda.
Rather like the ugliest side of dating in a way - I had to learn the red flags of the truly dangerous predators in society who were using gaming as a their lure.
In fact, I think the trend of such people abandoning preying upon the club scene for preying upon the gaming scene instead is growing ever more dangerously common.
Safety is an illusion.
Nothing is truly safe.
Thinking it totally safe is the first step to becoming their prey.
I now am very very careful.
A piece of me was taken in a way comparable to rape, though at least that didn't happen - not in the classic sense at least.
Keep the message strong. Keep reviewing the alternatives for us. You are in a unique spot. Dominate it.
Thanks for the love. Greatly appreciate it. 👊🏿
This is why I long since stopped caring about D&D and why gatekeeping is NEEDED. I NEVER got looked at as a black man playing D&D until these modern, "tolerant times."
I grew up in backwards Florida in the 90s. So I can't say I had your same experience. I kind of wish I did.
If you are on OKC you are welcome at my table. We don't allow any cultist woke crap. We are respectful but not boring.
I was shocked to remember that during all of my college years, I gamed with a “black” man. Strangely, I only knew him as “Jack” and didn’t think about it any further.
Love being called a racist because I don't care about what you are, but who you are. Most people are welcome at my tables unless they show me otherwise.
As a dorky white kid, the discrimination I experienced was along the lines of "geek culture" being inferior to "normal / sports culture". Being told to grow up and stop playing games and start playing sports. Being told that what I was doing was nerdy, dorky, geeky. As I aged through my teen years, I had gamer buddies that stopped gaming because of "image". Fortunately, I was never good at sports, so I didn't really have a "jock" image to worry about, LOL!
It all worked out fine though, as I found "my people" around the gaming table.
And again, you nailed it. People behind their phone or computer screen have the audacity to tell someone what they should say, or think or be.
Take your victory lap, you won, Sir.
Thank you, Servant for what you do, and I really like where you are going and taking this channel. Don’t you give in. Don’t you back down. You are making a difference
Thank you sir, I'm incredibly relieved that there are still sane folks in this world.
Thank you for watching and for the support. 👊🏿
Thanks!
Thank you so much. Mad love to you. 👊🏿🙂
Sir, I will not warn you again: well thought out and explained positions that are reasonable and logical will not be tolerated on the internet... that's not what we do out here buddy! 🤣 lol Appreciate your channel keep it up.
So much to address.
1. Urrelles = Yur-rell-less
So you were saying it right most of the time.
2. New Jersey cops have a special place in my family's heart. All of my family and friends in the east coast constantly state how they are guarenteed to be stopped by a cop when passing through New Jersey. And when you interact with them, they just ooze mistrust towards you. Now anywhere else in the nation I have the same good experiences as you. I used to be a security guard, so chatting it up with police is no issue…… except in New Jersey.
3. I wont be letting up. I have been calling out these crazy evil people for who they are more and more. My tolerance of the "racism of low expectation" is gettin to me and im speaking openly on how i hate it. Malcom X's description of the liberal vs the conservative is absolutely true in this day and age. The liberal has a controlling issue masked in virtue signals. If you deviate from their mantra, they attack viciously.
4. The last woman's comment is also something i experienced when i went to a Black University. I was told i was "talking white", and just made fun of for being true to myself. Luckily most of the students at Langston University were from Detroit and Chicago; so my experience was focused on to those people's culture and not all of Black America in general. But still a very bad experience to see the glorification of ignorance, and to be looked down by your own whom you were eager to bond with initially.
About "talking white" heard that one a lot over the years..... and the best I can figure out... is that the origin is from "activists" who claim they want to "support" the "black community"..... by encouraging them to insulate themselves from the rest of society.
I don't think it's actually "low expectation".... it's encouraging people to hold themselves to a set of ack-bassward standards that make them unable to interact with society as a whole. These "activists" are trying to sabotage society for their own enrichment.
One of the most hilarious stories I can say about "reverse racism".... came from my interacting with an Army Colonel at a cultural appreciation event. We had a group of soldiers sitting at a table and he asks us to talk about our cultural heritage one at a time. I don't remember what everyone said. Two specific ones stuck in my mind. the one girl who was sitting next to me looked like she was a Native American.... when he asked her... she literally said she couldn't tell him about her cultural heritage since didn't actually know what ethnic groups her ancestors were from. Then he gets to me... tries to skip because I'm a white guy, so I give people a quick story about how some of my ancestors were British, some Vikings... and way back in the day the British and Vikings hated each other. Obviously not what he was looking for but the Colonel appreciated that I gave him a coherent story.
Now thinking back I wonder.... the Colonel was a white guy.... was his attempt at skipping me a reflection of his own personal sense of worth based on his own heritage? hmm.... really makes you wonder.
@@marhawkman303 The colonel probably had a bit of ethnomasochism going on. It's this new flavor of White guilt in which they just hate themselves. Funny thing is people like this are more like White Supremist, since they literally believe everything in the world is a White creation and that White culture dominates all. So even though their viewpoint is out of guilt, it is still rooted in a supremacy mindset.
@@Urrelles yeah, although in his case he seemed to insinuate that white guys don't have any cultural heritage?
@@marhawkman303 The "talking White" thing i experienced was in the late 90s in college and sometimes today too. But back then it wasnt an activist nonsense thing. It was literally Black people lowering themselves in some illogical nonsense that was against being educated. Alienating themselves like you mentioned. Black American culture had a real big problem with trying to be monolithic. Having variety seemed frowned upon.
Today it is ok to have a DnD Black person, a rocker Black chick, a computer tech Black man, a Black person who liked sushi. Back in the 90s, it seemed like you had to be a cookie cutter man. You had to like rap and R&B. You had to like soulfood. You had to talk a certain way. If you didnt, you were weird. When i was at Langston it was really bad. So bad it made me avoid Black people years afterwards, due to the amount of grief i got for being a dude from California. Luckily that changed and i got lots of exposure to variety minded Black people years later. Social media helped break that. But in the 90s it was bad in certain areas. Chicago, Oaklahoma, and Detroit seemed god awful.
@@Urrelles Yeah, It really seems like a certain.... subset of the "community" is trying to foist that on others and I can't imagine there being any good intentions.
Then again... there's that old theory that it was radical black activists who killed MLK for trying to stop the race wars. Some people WANT there to be divisions between races, and loathe the idea of people living together in peace.
As a white CIS male (lol), it's ok to be a bit reductioinist about my experience... at least until you know me as the person I am...
Anyway: I had a good conversation the other day: race/gaming - trad anglo exposure to this, but what I really want to see - especially in TTRPG's is the return of Kara Tur, Anhcorome et al - written by players from those cultures - not strictly due to representation or even "authenticity" (it's D&D) - but for the same reason I like reading someone like Murakame - because it's someone from a world I don't have experience of, because they're from a different culture and part of the world - one that I don't have a grounding in.
It's how as a 45 year old British guy I can read about a teenage Jewish girl in the 1940s and learn from her world. We share so much stuff just by being people... Everybody poops.
Re. one of the comments about not seeing representation in gaming art until quite late, I would suggest that the reason people didn't see wider representation in D&D art earlier was because they weren't looking. The characters in the artwork in D&D module B3 first published in 1980, for example. The D&D Rules Cyclopedia and indeed the Mystara product line in the '80 are good examples.
Plus the face most of books up till what 1992 only used Black and White ink, and it takes a dam good artist to depict Negro in B&W ink.
As far as I'm concerned, a person's a person, no matter the color of their skin. The second we start drawing attention to what makes us different is the second we've lost as a species. We need to concentrate on what makes us similar, because we're all brothers and sisters, and we're all we've got in this life.
Brother SoS - once again giving us food for thought. Respect to you from this Anglo-Irish greybeard from across the pond, and to your commenters for sharing their experiences. We may not 100% agree on everything, but we most certainly can, as you say, be cool.
I may not always agree with you, but I appreciate your openness and willingness to share your experience. More than that, you've created a platform for other people to do the same.
It seems like so many people have forgotten how to simply listen, you know? When someone is telling you who they are, what they've experienced, and how they view things you LISTEN! Advocates are fine, but when someone feels that their opinion is more valid than the group they are "advocating" for, there's a problem. It takes the attention away from the subject and turns it towards the advocate and, as you say, it's evil.
yeah far too many "advocates" today telling people what to do.
I think that my biggest critique of the "woke" movement is the way that it encourages people to treat others. I would certainly agree that opposing injustice is a noble endeavor. However, it often seems like being "woke" is really more about tearing people down than building people up. Less about love than about having an acceptable direction to aim vitriol. Just my two cents.
Thanks for the video, Servant.
Yeah as far as I'm concerned, the definition of woke is 'politically and socially aware' - everyone seems to have their own interpretation of the word though, which makes discourse a challenge.
@@torenatkinson1986 Indeed, it is a challenge! It's interesting to me that most philosophy debates begin with a debate and then agreement on the definitions before productive discourse can be done. I think we as a culture (myself included, more often than I'd like) tend to talk past each other rather than to each other. If I play by your definition, I think we can find some common ground. And I imagine that you'd also agree that living in a constant state of rage is a bad thing. Either way, I appreciate the way you approached this. Thanks.
Another great video Servant I’m grateful for all your hard work and how it makes me try to think about how I’m acting in the TTRPG space.
Looking forward to the next chapter.
I started playing D&D (and The Fantasy Trip) in the late '70s, and we didn't care what race, sex, orientation, or creed you were, so long as you wanted to play D&D, and weren't a complete jerk, you were in! When I played D&D in West Germany in the mid '80s, I served, and played with people of numerous "races", and again, the priority was always on the desire to play, and the only politics that were brought up were those of the fantasy world we were playing in (my Druid once subverted the campaign we were in, and recruited the rest of the party into waging a full scale Guerilla war against the Theocracy of the Pale).
I guess my point is that I feel that often, people get wrapped up in perceived, imagined, or programed slights, instead of having fun with their friends, crafting an epic story that they will be talking to each other about for decades.
Thanks for the thoughtful videos. I'm happy to make up for one un-sub, with my subscription. Keep on speaking "Truth To Power".
thank you for sharing your voice and experience, plenty to learn here. You do you, that's why i sub.
I feel like I would almost give $5 to show respect to your hat, but this is thanks for the intelligent and engaging video. Subbing and hitting the bell.
Thank you so much. Appreciate it. 🙂
New hats are on the way. 😉👊🏿
Liked the video. Love hearing about the Negro perspective. Bring it! Nothing but love.
So much to comment on here--first off, I rolled my first set of dice back in 82 at a boy scout summer camp, for that game you refuse to mention. Mind you, I'm white and so was everyone in our gaming group. We would have loved to have you at our table. As part of a magnet program, we went to a school in South Dallas that was over 90% black, and none of the black kids there wanted anything to do with TTRPGs, be it D&D (the game you refuse to mention), Top Secret, Gama World, Traveler, Paranoia, or anything else we were up to.
So my hats off to you for what you're doing. My own personal take on woke-ism---there's a type of kindness that can kill, that can divide where divisions wouldn't happen without it, that can disconnect folks when they say they want people to come together. Woke-ism and it's ripple effects actually prevents the more sophisticated conversations we really need to be having from occurring. I could get really long with this, but chief, you're not the only one seeing it. Best and cheers!
I greatly appreciate your views and content! Well done Sir!
I appreciate that!
Hi! I was the third comment you read, and I wasn't expecting my comment to be read out, but I'm very happy I got to wake up to see this. I've had a rough time lately, but feeling like I made a contribution that was relatable to people really did help. ^^
Also, to clarify, yes, I am American.
You're the best! Appreciate your comment. Stick around and I pray things go better for you, my dear. God bless. Peace and hair grease! 🙂👊🏿
+1 for having the moral courage to talk about an important topic often weaponized by bad actors in our hobby. It shows you are clearly someone worth standing in the trenches with.
Bravo Good Sir!
Living up North it is tough for me to convince people I played rpgs with black players in Alabama in the 80's and 90's, including being dmed by a black guy playing Marvel. Keep it up.
I love this video.
RPG Elite first and foremost love your content keep up the good work. I can honestly say I am a TTRPG addict and TH-cam creator no joke, and you may be to, ask yourself this do you find yourself looking at new dice only to find you are locked in a inner struggle trying to justify why you need a new set of dice when you already have 200 sets at home? Do you experience a twinge of excitement when you see a new RPG that catches your eye and for a second you have a micro game session in your head, and you cannot help yourself and you must own this RPG! if you answered yes to either one of these questions face it you are a gamer. which also is a huge indication you enjoy using your imagination which is magic all unto itself because if you love TTRPG's you are sucked into a good story and find it hard to want to come back down to earth. That is the magic of our hobby, People who either do not understand what fantasy is or lack an immersive imagination and are so eager to be offended by everything and everyone around them. Are trying to destroy our hobby still have failed to grasp the concept that the tabletop experience is about letting your imagination run wild without barriers and political ideologies. And in these crazy times we live in it seems what is wrong is now expected to right and what is right is considered wrong. If a day ever came that all the TH-cam TTRPG creators could get together and game, you are most certainly welcome to my table sir keep up the great content and game on my friend.
On point as usual.
Hope to see this channel & these ideas gain more traction going forward.
I make it a point to keep talking points like this at the front gate of any gathering place I build as a ward against evil.
Works wonders.
I highly recommend it.
Man. I love your content. Very thought provoking and from the heart.
Always thought-provoking content! Keep it up.
That "Hmmm" on camera around 8:22 made me laugh out loud. If you know, you know.
This is a great video. Thanks for sharing these stories. It helps me learn. I hope I am learning
There is a black guy who has designed a few really cool TRPGs in the past and he recently did a Kickstarter for his game Godsend Agenda 3rd edition. He had never put anything political in any previous game so I figured this would be no different.
I was wrong. He put the BLM Fist logo (a communist symbol) on the cover page and wrote an introduction saying how he wrote this game for SJWs and BLM people and this is just a supers rpg with a lot of mythology in the setting.
I was blown away. Makes me wonder how American people can fall for all this wokeist propaganda and not even question the source of where woke really came from.
Great video as always. As a comic book creator in Sweden I have been dealing a lot with the woke culture in the comic book scene. It definatelly still exist, but i think it was at its worst around the middle of the 2010:s. The leftleaning feminist scene was unfortunately very hateful. And it was of course unfortunate. As a white man, that wanted equality (of course) but didn't buy into the sect like mentality, I became somewhat of a pariah for other members in the creating scene.
Thanks for the learning experience, as a GM I want to expand my knowledge and better my games.
I didn't have it so badly as others growing up. My Negro friends knew I was a nerd but were never interested in RPG's. My nerdy friends were/are mostly Caucasian (numbers, right?). I've always felt at home in the RPG community, because we care about the games, the stories they create and the camaraderie that resulted.
I used that MLK quote in my yearbook. I strive to live by that quote, but I've let myself get distracted by the cultural climate in an attempt to be open and understanding. Be well-meaning, and all that. That's been a mistake. This channel has helped me realize that.
How did this "orcs are metaphors for black people" thing start? Tolkien himself wrote of orcs as a metaphor for the horrors of war, i.e. in any war there were some "orcs" on both sides. And in the late 80s, Dragon Magazine described orcs as "the ultimate social Darwinists". It made the orcs sound more like Nazis than anything else.
I'm going to continue to run orcs in my games as old-school violent and hateful bad guys that want to either kill or enslave those weaker than them.
Let me sum up. The caring people got mad that in Curse of Strahd (Dracula adventure) in the unmentionable game. (UMG) used the wrong word to describe his Gypsy helpers without the knowledge, consent, or input from the Romani (spelling). This meant the game painted the whole culture as evil. Minor internet uproar and WOTC changed the wording and some of other characteristics on the NPCS. Then Orcs were brought as being Mongols which was bad but did not general the heated debate. So, change them to orcs being black which got the debate really going.
So, Orcs are Chaotic Evil and Orcs mean black people so WOTC is evil racist etc. We must change all the default alignments in the UMG books. Which is strange.
And I got my nose swatted by some mods by mentioning or asking "Did any one even read page 7 of UMG MM". (on page 7 Alignment is mentioned and a DM can change the alignment at will.) And got some temporary bans for the question.
So WOTC instead of changing the wording on page 7, decided in all future hardcover monster description have to either say "Typically Alignment" or "Any Alignment" Which is funny because I read the Dragonlance books in 80s, and evil minions are now only Typically LE.
Also, I was reading the debate and some people where bring up papers written in 1899 (18 is NOT a Typo) which proved Tolkein was racist. After that I just dropped out the debate because I can't even follow that crazy train.
@@RottenRogerDM I see. So the whole thing basically happened because of the internet being beset by Eternal September more or less.
It just...figures. But thanks for the rundown on how this silliness came about.
I'm still going to run orcs as sort of a stand-in for Nazis with the methodology of outlaw bikers. And there's not a damn thing any of the people you mentioned can do about it.
@@thepaulwalkerexperience8727 DuDe I had to google "Eternal September" Now I feel old.
The greatest human failing is the obsession with seeing themselves as good. Much evil is done to preserve that illusion.
I love you man. First, because you’re a brother in Christ. Second, because you speak the truth that is oftentimes difficult for a fair skinned dude to say without being called a racist. It should not be that way, and we should never back down from speaking truth about anything, but the reality is that the race card gets played all the time, and guys such as yourself are an edifying force who encourage us all.
So thank you, brother.
Amen, and thanks for the encouragement. It's all part of the plan...muhahahahaha!😉😄
I was not the target audience for this video but i still watched and am commenting bcuz otherwise youtube will hide you and I'll miss my dang Vaesen game when you do it.
Peace n love, my dude.
I'm old enough to remember when D&D was new and in 40+ years of playing never associated people of color with Orcs until people started complaining about it. I don't recall anyone I ever played with of saying anything resembling that and honestly people were alot more casually racist 40 years ago. Keep up the good work and stand by what you believe.
I really blame WoW for this.
Just found your youtube---saw top secret listed in your videos---you earned a subscriber--more once I've watched your videos here. Best and cheers!
Love truth when you hear it, sometimes the truth is uncomfortable, doesn't change it. Good video, keep it coming!
MAN, SoS dropping a truth bomb video at almost 1am? I'll lose sleep for that.
It never fail to make me grit my teeth to hear about people claiming to elevate others' voices out of one side of their mouth and then police their speech out of the other. Just... How does it not click for them? How does that not rock their foundation even just a little bit?
I've run into similar-ish situations at open (online) game tables: quotas or barriers based on gender, ethnicity, sexuality and such nonsense, but I just pick up stakes and leave.
Thanks as ever, Servant. You're a beacon in dire times. Burn hot, burn *bright.*
I have only been in the TTRPG space for a short time. But as a black man in his 40s, I have seen my share of back biting racism from my own people. But this new wave woke thinking is horrid. I respect other people as long as they respect me. Hell, there are black people that don't like Nerd life, and that's cool, but the woke mob want YOU to change for them. That's not cool. We can disagree, but shouldn't disrespect.
I think of all the things I have heard you say the one thing I disagree the most about is that the cops have a job to protect us.
We also have much different world views yet we disagree and agree back and forth on issues. And you seem to be okay with people who do. I wish we had more people like you in that regard.
Federal courts have ruled that the police have no obligation to protect citizens who are not in their custody
@@MisterWebb They make arrest based on what they are told happened and they set up prosecutors to cash out such claims. They are also used as a legalized form of violence when need be. This is what I see the police as. The causes of crime are not often deterred by the threat of punishment and at times are even a reaction against the established law. Some crimes especially with career criminals are committed by the criminal to protect themselves from the law.
Thank you for the video.
So well said .
Satan clause is walking the earth and so many refuse to see it even when it is in their face.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks for another interesting video. It is good to learn about other people`s experiencees in tabletop rpgs.
I first played D&D in 1980 in D&D Club in my middle school. One of my fellow players was Kevin, a black friend of mine. Throughout my time in school there were other black schoolmates who played in the Club, including a girl (who also read comic books!!!)
So, highly distilled Liberal wing (not left wing) identity politics is what "wokism" is? I think that one of the problems with terms like wokism is that there is not a clearly defined definition of them, like from the dictionary. My observation of the use (and perhaps misuse) of the word "woke" and it's "ism" is that what exactly it means depends on who is using it. How, and in what context. I have been accused of "wokism" (always online of course: trolls have stepped out of the pages of fantasy lit and ttrpg and are now denizens of the byways of the info highway) anyway, I have been accused of wokism when I point out that, in fact, the Civil War WAS fought over slavery (or, the right of a state to decide whether the institution of slavery should be perpetuated by law and custom). Or that red lining was a clear example of the thing that could be called "institutional racism". Yeah, that's woke... Ok dude. I am a nearly 60 white dude. I grew up in a (just above working) middle class household--where saying the N word was a far greater sin than was the F word--in a place where there were plenty of folks, (Latino and asian) that did not fall within the vaguely defined "Caucasian" label, but I dont remember seeing someone who was "black" in my hometown until I was in high school. I always respected my dad for putting his foot down about racial slurs (and in that little farm town you did not have to dig down far to find a bigot or three). Nowadays people have said dad was "acting woke" (what would "acting" woke be, proto woke?). Now, I look at the stuff that WOTsbro produces that alot of people say has "woke" all over it, and I see a corporation trying to "CYA" it's brand, so that they don't lose alot of market share if they are accused of racism. Having policies that look like wokism is easier to deal with than allowing material they publish to possibly be labeled as racist. The people at the top of The Company That Shall Not Be Named are most concerned about their bottom line. The white women that lambasted that one black dude (in your comments ) as a conservative probably exist in a silo so separated from reality as to be downright antiseptic. Be all that as it may, if "wokism" is liberal identity psychobabble, the right in this country has its own form of wokism: Florida banning scads of books so kids won't be tempted to say "gay" is every bit as wrong headed. I think the word "race" is the wrong word to use to describe elves, dwarves, orcs, etc, in an rpg, but I don't think that opinion is woke: I have had that opinion since the 80s. And there are rpgs that changed that a long time ago, such as Palladium (that uses the word "species") relative latecomers Pathfinder, that use the term "ancestry". Anyway, this comment is long and just getting longer. Keep putting out such thought provoking content. Cheers.
Good video man. Any chance you have checked out Mork Borg yet? Would love to see your take on it👍
I'd love to hang out with you. Pragmatic, realistic and down to earth. I honestly can't say I'd want to hang out with too many people these days. Take that for what it's worth, and keep doing what you do.
Thank you for that. Appreciate the love. For real. 🙂
Happy gaming. 👊🏿
@@RPGElite hmm... that phrase you used. "Calling evil good, and good evil." That's in the Book. And you know what the Book says it's a sign of. The Judgement is coming soon. One of the other things it mentioned to watch out for was "science falsely so called". Well, this is the old Greek concept of science, which was basically just accumulated knowledge, but still, it fits what is going around today. There's also that "pharmakeia" reference. that stuff's become way more popular in these last few years.
I've been in the hobby since it hit the market; I can't remember exactly when I first heard the 'orcs are black people' idea (it was only after several years of RPG'ing), but I've never thought of it as anything but stupid and racist (redundant terms perhaps, but there it is). Tolkien's orcs talked like lower-class Englishmen, not African-Americans, but whatever.
Keep up the good work; these vids are like a breath of fresh air. That particular line from MLK is one of the few quotes from anyone anywhere that reliably bring me goosebumps when I hear it.
As a African American. I watch the the thing that shall be not be named community videos and content for reference for my own rpg I do for African American teens. You never see a deep look into African culture, or african monsters. I did my own research and found awesome African legends. No one touches or looks into the content.
Agree. There are so many legends and myths from the African continent that most people wouldn't be able to keep up. Even I myself had a hard time period I was running a Marvel superheroes game I wanted to use the Western African deities as part of my story Arc. Greek and Roman gods have been used to death. But taking that fresh look at a whole different pantheon really brings new life to a game.
Ingenius!
@@phillee427 "Glory to Hanuman" - Imbaku
@@phillee427 I use Shango, Ogun, Eshu, Anansi, and several others as spirits, not gods. There IS A LOT of material that makes the Forgotten Realms look small.
@@vernonhampton5863 He is Hindu. lol
Ok maybe I'm just an ignorant white boy but I thought the N word had an "i" in it. Keep on doing what you are doing Shiloh- love your channel.
Same here. I think of Negro as an almost archaic term that has fallen out of use in favor of black or Black. But it is not the N-word. I liv3 in Canada now, and here some white students seem to think Negro is the N-word, which strikes me as sad. However, maybe this reflects a generational divide? Still, does nobody remember the United Negro College Fund advertisements from the late 1970s or early 1980s?!?
I also like how the title of this video reminds me of an article from a 1963 issue of Life magazine or a non-fiction book title from that era. I often find the term "woke," when used as a derogatory term, like calling someone a reactionary, libtard or other carichature, to be over the top. However, I appreciate the critiques made here. Appreciation of nuance and openmindedness are key, and our man here seems to be preaching that.
I really enjoy your videos. I live in a country without black people so I never knew that rpgs were less popular with blacks. I find your perspective really eye-opening and I know its difficult to go against ones "tribe". I can't really think of many hobbies more inclusive than role-playing. Being someone else is literally part of the experience.
While not black, I have been told that I'm great for making tabletop games more diverse. I just wanna play ttrpgs without being some small bastion for diversity
Oh, I forgot. Last Tuesday of the month. Here we go!
I must be a unicorn in the TTRPG community. I'm from Brooklyn, NY and I was introduced to D&D (1e and 2e) in the 80s. My D&D group consisted of nothing but nerdy black teenagers who still had time to play sports and other games when we weren't playing D&D. As a matter of fact, most in the group had girlfriends who liked the fact that we were not running the streets and congregated at a friends house for 5 to 6 hours playing a game that involved dice not being used for gambling. 😄
I say all this because I look at D&D now, and while I'm all for being inclusive and having representation, some of these groups are taking it a bit too far.
Just another brother adding his 1 cent to the conversation. You have a great day RPG Elite. 😉
Cancel culture has wired me to the point where I'm quite frankly hesitant and maybe even a bit afraid to talk about these things. I'm a white male, and just saying that is already throwing up a red flag for someone I'm sure, but I sympathize with your experience and those of the people who are sharing theirs. I hate that the current social climate is so blind to their own ignorance and how their misguided, albeit with good intentions, actions only divide us. POC isn't a very "inclusive" term, because it specifically otherizes anyone who isn't white and labels them. I can't speak on behalf of that experience because the closest I have is being ginger, but that's quite obviously different. However, I can say that I don't like unsolicited labels being placed on me, so I'd have to assume others share those feelings. Someone's race is important, but generalization dehumanizes the individual, and that can only be seen as a negative.
Anyways, just wanted to say I really respect you speaking about these things and sharing the voices of those who commented. I think it can be validation for those who share this experience, and for us who don't, it's valuable insight into a world we don't see every day.
Love the vids buddy. I'll stick around for the next mic drop.
Well, only albino people and some Irish are paler than me so that tells you where I am on the race meter. Have I experienced bullying for being into uncool hobbies? Yes. Playing RPGs since the late 80s, Battletech since 1990, anime since before I knew it was even anime or that my cartoons were originally in Japanese and were poorly dubbed, JRPGs on the consoles (Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System was my introduction there). I've been called a satanist (even though I was probably more into the new testament than my accusers at the time), gay (I wore jogging pants and was overweight), a gay pretender (because I stopped wearing jogging pants), a freak (I embraced that one and became "The Gundam Freak" for quite a long time), and so on. Was I assaulted for any of it? A couple of times. How did I handle it? Not as well as I could have. I persisted. I tucked away the anger, walked or hobbled away, and shouldered on. Pretty sure that is what has led me to being a bitter, single, cat-daddy in my 40s working for an even older crusty white guy at a gaming store. Which got me and him bad press as people posted online that he fired the young lady who was working for him to hire another crusty white guy. Actually she was covering for her husband who had health issuesand she left to go work at a big company where she makes enough money to support them both. Since then I have been targeted by cancel culture (for being anti-gay, which I'm not at all) and called a C.H.U.D. (which I think is the white guy equivalent of calling someone "Uncle Tom" these days). That being said, I still persist, as opposed to my brother who shot himself despite it seemed he had so much going for him. Life is strange. I carry on and try to find good people. I love seeing creativity and what people make of their lives. I also try to find people to pass on what I've learned to in gaming and hobbying. I may not have children but I can still have disciples of a sort. I think I've found a good person on this channel so kudos to you. Unless you go woke or violate a few other taboos which I think would see you in an asylum or prison (although I don't know what is legal or illegal where you live), only death, blindness, or dementia will make me stop watching your videos. I find ones like the one you posted today fascinating as an intellectual look into a side of the argument that is almost universally shouted down without being listened to up here in Canada. Thank you. I mean that. It shows me there are still open minds out there and there is hope. And your comment about finding people on the elevator going up and passing by those on the one going down. Man, I wish someone had drilled that into my head 35 years ago. Great advice.
Followup extra: I studied animation in college. I got a LOT of flak from both other students and the teachers for being into anime while I studied animation. It was regarded as "trashy" and "a temporary foreign trend" and not to be imitated. That was the middle 2000s. They wanted me to watch the Cal-arts cartoons instead. I never switched and I'm not sorry for that. I still love anime and tokusatsu. Henshin heroes and giant robots are a man's romance as far as I'm concerned.
The Irish aren't pale we come in two vibrant colours - beyond-white blue or sunburn red. ;)
@@jamesbloggs8937 LOL. I know that second colour. Happened to me most times I went to Florida.
I'm here for the game, not the politics.
I 2nd that emotion.
I've been catching what I can from your channel. TH-cam notifications suck. It's good to hear that people are still unwavering about the orc thing. I found it more offensive that people read the descriptions and thought, "That's definitely black people." Sounded more like a self tell to me. I had played fantasy rpgs for decades at the point where this became an "issue," and that thought had never come to my mind.
I giggled a little too much at 'cotton pickin minds'!
Digging the content
Never give up, never give in!
Phenomenal video, very good points were raised and I couldn’t have expressed them better myself. The only thing I want to add is, how can the woke think that orcs and dark elves are supposed to be stand ins for “black” people when their primary settings back in the day of Grayhawk and forgotten realms, both had said “black” people already in them?
20:53
So.
I been here.
As a 'white' Gay Nerd who is in a relationship which a 'black' Gay Nerd, we had to have THE TALK.
He tried to do the whole "this trait is an isolating difference making stuff utterly non-comparable."
As in Gay relationships are utterly isolated from 'normal relationships.'
To which I just boggled.
My sexuality is no more isolating than my eye color.
I don't belong to a group focusing upon Hazel color eyes.
I don't have a membership card to the "brown hair club."
My being a NERD is more defining about me even while it does not define me.
Is it possible that certain inalienable traits might make one susceptible to many more NEGATIVE experiences?
Oh hell yeah.
As a gay man who don't seem to swish or go gonzo-macho, I find myself looked at askance by other gay men in my time.
And being a nerd while gay, oh wow, that don't help.
And with ny having a disability as well as mental health struggles really help in getting shoved in a box too.
So I know boxes and being forced into one - or several.
That was a hard talk.
Mostly as I wanted to carefully work my way around to suggesting he stop the affectation of sounding like a caricature as well at times because I knew damn well that a guy who can go on and on about Ghost Rider and Marvel in general and as such then forgets to do the affectation while doing such, only talked that way as learned behavior.
Mostly unconsciously, I dunno.
Weird day for me.
'Human beings just like anybody else'- jeebus if more folks could hear and live that, +1 to all your save throws!
PS- How's Vaesen look? I'd be hip to hear from you if/when you play it out for real. And yes, I'm old enough to use words like hip and groovy 8>D
Thank you, this needed to be said. I’m lucky as I’ve not needed to go through any of this. I do feel this needs to be said if you see racism and sexism at your table and in the game, I feel it says more about the people at and running the game. Or maybe it says something about yourself and what you want to see. (Speaking about the person offended for other people by the term Negros). If you are playing with the right group for you these are non issues
I’m glad you shared these comments.
The TTRPG community is being infested by wokeness, especially the game you won’t mention.
Our pastor is doing a series on wokeness and how it has roots in communism and is evil in of itself.
I have a funny feeling the person who left the comment didn't bother watching enough of the video to see your face.
The world would be boring without people who say things that are "controversial" or "triggering". Their statements make you think. For a certain percentage of humanity, thinking is like poison. They want to be spoon fed their opinions and have anything that triggers their Cognitive Dissonance washed away. Personally, I like being challenged by someone else's opinion...It makes me use my brain and I like that.
Why don't you say you're a servant of shiloh anymore in the beginning?
I do. It's always been a silent animation at the bottom on the screen. It's cool you noticed. Kudos. 👊🏿🙂
I'm new to this channel. Have you had a bad experience with D&D as a company or something, screwed you over in some way?
Well first, that's not a company. It's a game. 😉
Just playing.
Actually, I have not had any direct dealing with company. I've never given them a dime of my money.
@@RPGElite Not even interested in any of the OSR versions out there? Just don't like the mechanics of d20 games?
@@RPGElite Okay. But why is it the game that you never mention? Or am I barking up the wrong tree, and it's another game? Or you just don't like the game? I'm 53 and I'm rediscovering the hobby of my youth, I have a soft spot for Tunnels and Trolls, as it was my first ,D&D my second, which I also loved playing. I was just interested in your back story, why there should be a game that sticks in your craw. If it's personal and you don't want to talk about then fair enough...
IIRC he mentioned in a video that, once he reaches a certain subscriber threshold (don't remember the number), he'll do a video explaining this. So recommend this channel to all your friends!
@@evilboy4fr Ok will do, cheers m8.
How offended will that person be when they learn what the acronyms for the NAACP and the UNCF actually are. Keep doing the good work.
The OGL debacle has been GREAT for getting other tabletop creators exposed to new audiences.
Most of the time I ran recruitment as a kid the issue was it being stigmatized religiously. I lost a LOT of potential players of all stripes from that.
Keep being human, thank you.
There’s nothing wrong with the word “Negro.” I’m black and don’t see any issue with you expressing what you’re trying to explain. 😂 How else are you supposed to explain what you mean without words?
The wicked take the truth to be hard.
Strange times we live in. Keep producing content and forget the victims who blame others for being offended.
I subed just to cancel a disgrunted unsub. His unsub has been futile.
I gotta agree with you on some points . When when the woke left started calling orcs racist I thought oh Lord . How are orcs racist ? They're mythical creatures , the time the term was used was in the epic poem Beowulf and it was kinda of a generac term applied to any undead creature. It wasn't based on any humans
This video speaks volumes of rational logical thought. You speak with the high intellect as someone like MLK. He would not support this wokeism culture. I hope your video inspires everyone to question everything and to think logically
will you please continue to express yourself using the words you choose. Critical thinkers appreciate it. Thank you
To your question: I have been involved in tabletop gaming since the early 1970s, experienced and participated in the emergent TTRPG genre (when the only published game in town was - actually, I forgot the name [heh]), and the hobby as whole was conspicuously mostly (but only mostly, take note) white, mostly male. I'll quite frankly admit that back then the only thought I gave to the notion of broader demographic inclusion in TTRPG boiled down to, "where are the girls at?" When the girls (and other formerly under represented groups) did starting showing up, I never personally witnessed, experienced, had to mediate or mitigate any too-egregious situations revolving around attempts at discrimination. Interpersonal fallings out, of course, but seldom over externals, just character.
As I got older still, gaining the confidence (or self-delusion) sufficient to take on gamemastering, I didn't consciously think to myself, "I'm going to run an inclusive, 'woke' table and hit everyone on the nose with it, too," I just did the do, and people figured it out. Gamers are smart, right?
I'm use to my odd-ball-ness. It's somewhat a lonely existance, but it's a price I'm willing to pay for being anti-social. 😆
Well I appreciate what you're trying to do now I admit I'm not black but I do enjoy learning about other cultures and yes role-playing games are definitely a good way for us to walk in the other person's shoes. You're beginning comment using the word "negro" now I would say it's an outdated term about when you're talking about read about culture and history one must admit that term has been used probably far longer than other terms to describe the black race although I would prefer to just all call people the human race. But one must acknowledge that unfortunately human beings as a whole we have a tendency to separate ourselves but how can we stop unless we learn how to see where each are coming from.
I'm a black man and am totally fine about your title.
I understand that we are "POCs" only some of the time (i.e. complaining about whites) but not others (e.g. college admissions). I tell you now that I had no problem finding Orientals playing TTRPGs. I guess gaming is one of those "white adjacent" things.
I want to say, for the record I never saw anyone saying orcs were black people until the woke cult moved in.
That Snagglepuss clip always bothers me. He’s actually exiting to stage right. It should be flipped.
No, he's not. They're actually taking the viewer into consideration. It's not from his vantage point.
That would be "house left".
"Colour", when you see color spelled that way, that commenter is probably not from the US. Most likely Great Britain, which is a country with actual word police.
Maybe it is that I grew up in the early 1970s, but I find that very little would have me unsubscribe.
I think those who unsubscribed would find me much less of an ally even if I agreed with half of what they said - mostly as it would not be long before I was given that same shunning and "scarlet letter" treatment.
I can't for the life of me tell if it all is simply accidental or if someone's intent (maybe portions of each), but I hate how too many out there feel like a spontaneous performance of an ugly stereotype of what would otherwise be a good collection of qualities in someone else.
Thankfully, I've never had to deal with woke BS when playing by games.
I will say that I do agree with the idea in games that it's better to have evil organisations than evil races. An evil race isn't interesting to me and it blocks players from playing that race in good campaigns. Evil organisations are much more interesting and way more fun to fight. It's more fun to beat up Nazis and the KKK than too beat up orcs and goblins. That's my opinion anyway.
We can all agree though that comparing orcs to black people is silly.
"Can't be conservative and chaotic" Lol it's like they never even heard of Trump.
You know,
the current generation is missing out that they can't randomly shout out.
"Free the man, Free James Brown!" and have every know what that is all about.
Just saying!
Just got recommended this and as a white as can be person IV noticed it a bit… I’m a wod fan ( same company that made exalted!) but I’ve always considered it to be good with representation from races, gender and sexuality
“I get along with the police” corny