...and as expected, now Dungeons and Dragons is problematic. Didn't take too long after Magic: The Gathering ...
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/featur ... ty-and-dnd
"Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is strength, for only a diverse group of adventurers can overcome the many challenges a D&D story presents. In that spirit, making D&D as welcoming and inclusive as possible has moved to the forefront of our priorities over the last six years.
When I think about a diverse group of adventurers, I don't think about race, skin, color, or 'inclusion.' Instead, it's different abilities and roles which make for a good/balanced party. Since early editions of the game, there is talk about having party members fill different roles like damage dealer, support, control, melee, arcane caster, ranged...this isn't 'inclusion.' Having a diverse party has nothing to do with making the game 'welcoming' and 'inclusive' like they're talking about.
"Throughout the 50-year history of D&D, some of the peoples in the game—orcs and drow being two of the prime examples—have been characterized as monstrous and evil, using descriptions that are painfully reminiscent of how real-world ethnic groups have been and continue to be denigrated. That’s just not right, and it’s not something we believe in."
D&D has always had a system of alignment - some are good, evil, chaotic, lawful. Some races have trends like orcs: barbaric, nomadic, brutish. Drow are usually evil, live underground, murderous, secretive. Many campaigns deal with fighting against them, heroes, usually good, battle evil. That's quite standard...and there are often shades of gray and even iconic good drow.
All fantasy has parallels with real-life...and guess what, there is good and evil in all races even if a particular D&D race is mostly evil or mostly good. What's the problem here? Shall we have no villains in a game? Should every race be good? Should we remove evil from the game? Dark elves, black elves, oh no! I don't know what they're talking about here when they mention that some terms describing drow or orcs are denigrating and this compares to real life ethnic groups.
"We present orcs and drow in a new light in two of our most recent books, Eberron: Rising from the Last War and Explorer's Guide to Wildemount. In those books, orcs and drow are just as morally and culturally complex as other peoples."
There's always been complexity. Not all drow are evil. Not all orcs are evil. Especially in v3.5, alignment is presented as a continuum. There is/was mention that most tend to be a certain alignment, but of course this isn't always the case. Orcs and drow and even half-orcs are player characters, too, not always evil.
When every D&D book is reprinted, we have an opportunity to correct errors that we or the broader D&D community discovered in that book. Each year, we use those opportunities to fix a variety of things, including errors in judgment. In recent reprintings of Tomb of Annihilation and Curse of Strahd, for example, we changed text that was racially insensitive.
I looked for what they think is racially insensitive. I found a quote:
“Pozzanna’s family was originally from Amn, but she was born and raised in Chult. As a result, her personality and demeanor exhibit those dual influences: the civilized calculation of an Amnite mixed with the wild savagery of a Chultan.”
What's racially insensitive about this? If a race happens to be savage, well, isn't that a fact, why is this racially insensitive? Why think of savage as negative anyway? Orcs see savagery as a boon, they are strong, they can use strength to overcome enemies. What, is the word 'warlike' or 'violent' PC enough? Going back to orcs, yes, orcs typically live in tribal structures, engage in lots of violence, and fight with outsiders rather than parlay. Why would thinking of orcs as violent be racially insensitive?
"Later this year, we will release a product (not yet announced) that offers a way for a player to customize their character’s origin, including the option to change the ability score increases that come from being an elf, a dwarf, or one of D&D's many other playable folk. This option emphasizes that each person in the game is an individual with capabilities all their own."
Why? D&D books talk about how rules and books are guidelines, but ultimately the system can be changed for player or DM preference. Especially in home-games, a small group can agree on changes to the rules and this is no problem. Why does D&D have to release more supplements with alternative ability scores? In fact, they do with subraces already...and races often have different ability scores for really good reasons. Elves are typically tall and slender, so it makes sense for them to be more dexterous compared to dwarves...and dwarves have high constitution...why is this a problem?
...you know, he's the most famous drow - a rebel against his evil, corrupt society viewed by many as a hero in the battle of good vs. evil