Great article but you overlooked one very important aspect of modern D&D, it’s dumbed down as shit. There is very little uniqueness between characters in 5e and it is way more forgiving to players than earlier editions where challenge was a core part of the game. It was one of the biggest reasons the “consume” crowd stuck with WotC over the other fantasy offerings.
Without any complexity, danger, or challenge to your characters in an RPG all the drama and action come from the players and game master. It's like playing a book but it will almost always be missing those dynamic elements that make for a good story. There are few instances for your characters to show ingenuity, unexpected surprises to take them out of their comfort zone, moments to push them in new and exciting directions, or struggles to help them grow. It's perfect for well the theater club types but it will never equal a great tale of adventure.
You know, you are kind of right about the de-civilization thing. I didn't fully appreciate it until I got done writing my response but even the kinds of silly stories we make out of fictional tabletop characters say quite a bit about us.
Yes--seems to me civilisation is as much a matter of the beauty, order and complexity invested in 'useless' things as it is a matter of mere 'technique'.
Yes. Aside from the theater kids, I think another problem is that the modern game has been influenced by movies and video games. New players expect a D&D campaign to be like a movie, with a plucky band of destiny-chosen adventurers who start small and end up saving the world. Maybe they face some dangers along the way, but ultimately you know that if they keep fighting, they'll battle through and get the job done, because that's the way the story has to end. For that to happen, the campaign has to be fairly on-the-rails, and the difference between a skilled DM and a poor one is that the skilled one, like a well-designed RPG video game, is better at hiding the rails and making it *seem* like anything could happen.
But that's not how D&D used to be at all. You started out a low-level nobody and were far more likely to be killed by a giant rat on your first adventure than to become a great hero. If you were trying to save anything, it was a town or a castle, not the world. It was *possible* to advance a character to high levels where he can lead armies or battle gods on astral planes. But that would take many campaigns played over years, skilled players and DM, and a decent amount of luck, because without the DM keeping the story on the rails, bad things really could happen anytime. But usually you're just having fun hacking around through dungeons, gathering loot and trying to stay alive.
New or old players who want a *game* like that instead of an interactive epic storytelling method are going back to the 70s/80s versions, which as our host said can largely be had for free. Some call it the Old-School Rennaisance. Just wish I had time to get back into it myself.
Mr. Ape, I always appreciate a shout-out from you. Excellent piece. Your theater kid anthropology is spot-on and it explains so much. The theater kids are absolutely remaking everything in their lame image. We need to take it back.
For me, the D&D brand is dead. I've swapped over to other games that I enjoy far more whether solo or with friends and it's for the very reasons you mentioned.
I played D&D when I was 10 or 11 at school. Ya might say I was *temperamentally unsuited*: I beat up the DM one day mid-game and never played again.
In my early 20s I played magic once. Dragged along by a friend, I found myself embarassed and confused by it all and never went back.
I enjoyed this article all the same.
I think what you're referring to with this hostile theatre kid takeover is what ya might call de-civilisation: the hollowing-out of Western culture so that things retain their names, and the bare mechanisms ncecessary for their functioning, while they're divested of content. The content--the essence of the thing--is then replaced to fit the resentful narcissism of regime client groups.
See also: establishment Christianity, liberalism, socialism, even communism.
Good article, but I would really take note that AD&D 2nd edition is so different from its predecessor versions is that it's a completely different game. 1ed AD&D and the original D&D were wargames scaled down to first-person POV, but higher-level play was also built in. The transition from wargamer-led TTRPG to Frustrated Novelist / Director - led TTRPG, to what Jeffro Johnson and Brad Walker and aligned writers call "Conventional Play" (the current assumed model of play) is arguably what led to this phenomenon writ large. With the original D&D / AD&D being an outgrowth of wargaming, the barrier to entry was actually pretty high. Those versions of the game, played according to rules as written, are "always on" players playing at multiple levels - PC, faction, patron, and NOT having perfectly aligned interests - i.e, not the "One Party Uber Alles Get-Along-Gang" - no one would be able to play one and just one character forever. Because 1 to 1 time is assumed in that version, you have to play other characters, or you don't at all for long stretches. That's a wargame, which can be won, not a sit-down Improv session. The whole "There is no wrong way to play D&D" and "Rule 0" and "Session 0" culture that's built up is...wrong. It enables the Theater Kids.
Excellent work and excellent reading, as is so often the case with you, my good ape.
You've hit the nail squarely on the head with each point. I've been invested in this hobby for long enough that I witnessed this change happening in real time. I, along with many others, comprised a pair of the "boots on the ground," as it were. Back when I used to run my YouTube channel and speak more regularly about this sort of thing, I both got a lot of support from old heads like myself who were in the same boat, and a cavalcade of shit - a cacalcade, as I believe you recently put it? ;) - from the exact kind of shrieking neurotics you describe in this essay.
These troglodytes are a modern day form of low tier brigand; arrogant enough to think their ideas and desires are the end all, be all, and that all and sundry should cater exclusively to them, anyone else be damned. Yet the battlefields they choose, the tactics they use, and the reactions they give when pushed against reveal the truth of their weakness, particularly once greater public opinion comes into play. It's not just the hobbyist nerds and geeks, the *actual* ones like myself and my friends who did have to deal with being mocked daily for liking certain kinds of games, or the ones like my best friend's stepdad who lived through the Satanic Panic and had people try to throw blows at them over this, who dislike these trogs. Most everyone that exists outside of the "theater kid" bubble dislikes them, and deservedly so.
These "theater kids" are fucking insufferable. They're the Karens of the geek world, but worse because of the state of arrested development they're perpetually trapped in. And while it's already obvious from what I've said, I want the satisfaction of putting it to words: I hold these types in nothing but contempt.
Re: Forgotten Realms, yeah. It's bland, it's big, it's a patchwork of misappropriated tropes. The only thing worse is Pathfinder's in-house setting, which is like a parody of all the worst things about Forgotten Realms.
I guess the idea is that it's more of a framework than a setting. Here's all the generic bits and some maps, just add character (and characters).
I've never been a big fan of it. Some of the novels added some depth of history and culture to it, and that's the main reason why everything is centered around Waterdeep, etc. - because that's where all the good novels took place, on the northwest coast of (generic medieval european fantasy continent #1).
Some of the other canned settings are more interesting - Ravenloft, Dark Sun - but really, I don't think you can call yourself a DM/GM if you're not running your own thing. That's half the fun of it. Everybody else makes their characters, you make the world. If you're not doing that you're just a referee.
Here's the secret. No one needs prefabricated settings or modules at all. All you need is the 1ed DMG, PHB, and MM, and that's it. Sure, add in FF and DD if you want but they're optional.
You don't *really* need anything but paper, pencil, and some randomizer if the game calls for it. You can make your own rules. According to my kid you don't need the paper and pencil either, because laptops, like, exist, dad. But I'll stick to the pencil & paper.
These bastards have ruined two cherished parts of my childhood now. Boy Scouts, where I was introduced to AD&D in the late 80s, got skinsuited first. Yeah 5e turned Leftist hard. A big part of the turn are the "inclusive" Critters.
I went to Comic Con last year. The cast was the Saturday keynote panel. Beforehand outside, the "official" fan club got together for pictures in front of the hotel next to the San Diego Convention Center. All I heard were a bunch of tearful sharings of how Crit Role made them feel better or included or saved their life. Wow, it was all sooo... dramatic.
I still love D&D. I would love to game with some not Left people. My last campaign group wasted the DM's night one time going completely off the rails to stop this jerk of a mayor from being mean to the townspeople. I spent the whole night "sitting in the tavern drinking" while the three millennials in the group went "crusading."
This is exactly why so many have fled to Warhammer. You can't un-male it, dumb it down, make it flamboyant and theatre kid friendly. Its nature is anathema to these types, with the exception of some slightly autistic youtubers.
That and it brings the monster out to the surface of the feminine. For some reason Tyranids are the usual pick for woman, whether they play or merely paint. Gieger was on to something deep in the female psyche, about forced unions and consuming anatomy. I have yet to hear about one such women being a source of drama.
Eh, I don't know. They sure seem be trying their damndest there too. :P I suspect it's only a matter of time. See: the whole female Space Marine* kerfuffle.
On a slightly more serious note, considering how over the top, flamboyant and yes, even camp WH is in many ways, I think there's definitely an avenue for the theater kids there.
*Or whatever pseudo-Latin term it was, I only played WH Fantasy back in the day and never got too much into 40K lore
Play the game you want, build the world you want, run it how you want. That was the premise in the original game. I know; I'm that old I was playing it.
I prefer RuneQuest III rules with my own setting, built from the ground up.
Once the wokester trash/theater kids/emo moron fucks take over something, it's as dead as Julius Caesar. Dump it and move on.
WOTC always sucked dong; we felt the life go out of DnD when Gygax was oustered. We moved on to other RPGs and left our favorite game in the dust. It was turning into something we didn't want and couldn't afford.
Forgotten Realms was also a long running series of books; read the books to get the feel of the realm.
I know I’m going to be in the minority here. But when did the live and let live attitude become bad? I don’t like WotC much myself, but I love adding more inclusive things like people in wheelchairs and changing race to ancestry. Maybe that’s just me. But I dislike 5E for reasons that are mechanical, not to “own the libs”.
If you don't mind a comment from someone who's not the author, I'll try to answer this in good faith, since I'm an example of someone who's frustrated with present-day "woke" WotC, but also doesn't care much for the hard-right traditionalist social conservative angle. Or in other words: the idea of "what's the big deal, guys, it's only a little inclusion" does rub me the wrong way when it's clearly much more than that, but I'm also willing to meet you halfway to an extent.
Much of this started from good intentions. I fully agree that pop culture as it stood in, say, 1990 could do with more representation of people who weren't white and heterosexual, and that it could often be comicially insensitive and objectifying towards women. As with many things, I feel we found a good compromise somewhere in the 2000s. Since then, IMO it's taken more of an ugly turn, for the reasons laid out by our host in this essay.
So what are my problems with it? One big problem is how forced and jarring it is. All this stuff is jammed into every fictional setting, regardless of whether it fits. Having the occasional person in a wheelchair in fiction? In a work set in the modern world, sure. In D&D it's obviously absurd and only there as crass virtue-signalling. As someone who's not from the US, it also feels like modern American culture and politics being shoved into all these fictional worlds, giving them a samey feel and making the whole thing feel like it's more about a pissing match with those oh so evilly evil Republicans rather than an exercise in imagination.
There's also the authoritarian bent to it. You're not allowed to disagree with any of this without being an evil bigot. Zero room for discussion, and they'll often indulge in cheap sleights of hands, like insinuating that you don't care about handicapped people in the real world if you think wheelchairs in the Forgotten Realms is a laughable concept. Plus, these things tend to come as part of a wider ideology. Look at, say, how eagerly WotC embraced Covid authoritarianism and virtue signalling during the pandemic.
They also tend to be very gung-ho about promoting some groups (ie. black people and trans) in particular, and often by simply dropping them into existing worlds. It feels shallow. If they cared so much about African history and culture, why don't they make more settings explicitly based on them? I'll also that admit that the relentless pushing of all the trans stuff gets a bit tiring for those of us who don't always agree with all the politics around that issue. So yes, there is an element of "stop reminding me you disagree with me politically all the time in my escapism", even if that's a little childish. :P That aside, it's another very 21st century American cultural thing that IMO stands out like a sore thumb in other settings. And they should acknowledge it's a controversial issue and handle it more tactfully, even if I'm not demanding they change their very pro-trans stance. Just be aware that many of their customers won't agree and show some tact.
Another aspect is the over-representation. Ie., these works emphasize black and gay/trans people so much it's wildly out of proportion to how large a fraction they actually comprise of the American population, so it again starts feeling forced and like scoring political points rather than natural.
So yes, in principle I agree that avoiding crass stereotypes and acknowledging that other ethnicities than white Europeans exist in fiction is a positive step. Again, as we largely had in the 2000s. That doesn't mean I support this new social justice ideology that tends to be shrill, constantly looking for the smallest bit of wrongthink or offence, and that imposes an artificial template of modern US West Coast culture on every fictional work. Inclusivity that fits and is done in an elegant and nuanced way? Sure. The current hyper-politicized and tone-deaf way, not so much.
As for the language thing, I actually agree on "race", which has a lot of unfortunate real-world baggage, and never made much sense in D&D to begin with anyway. These are obviously different species, not "races". On the other hand, you have stuff like WotC arbitrarily deciding words like "tribal" or "witch" are suddenly oh so problematic for spurious reasons. (It's amusing to me that it apparently never occurred to them that "Druid" is used by a real religious group too in the Druid Revival, but then again I'd never imagine any modern Druid would take offence to its use in MtG.)
Apologies for the semi-rant, but hopefully this can be one example of how the "other side" feels that might be useful.
That last sentence, holy moly it's all true. We're at the mercy of trained histrionics. I got into RPGs with Call of Cthulhu (which is just better designed and has a better setting). And I'll just say out of the several games I plaid from D&D none of them reached completion (yet). Why? Well here's my point: popularizing the game made everyone miss the point of why you play D&D or an TTRPG: for the social experience and not just for a story. I think stuff like critical role popularized and bastardized it simultaneously... but what am I complaining for. That's been the story of everything everywhere since stuff could be marketed and sold.
I've always had a dislike for the Forgotten Realms setting. Every time I tried to read a story set there, my instincts would scream that it would be poisonous to my enjoyment of fantasy across the board.
Also, I have a fondness for Travis McElroy's brand of humor. I know that puts me in the minority, but so be it.
Great article but you overlooked one very important aspect of modern D&D, it’s dumbed down as shit. There is very little uniqueness between characters in 5e and it is way more forgiving to players than earlier editions where challenge was a core part of the game. It was one of the biggest reasons the “consume” crowd stuck with WotC over the other fantasy offerings.
Oh the joys of THAC0
'it’s dumbed down as shit.'
Exactly so--this is de-civilisation
Without any complexity, danger, or challenge to your characters in an RPG all the drama and action come from the players and game master. It's like playing a book but it will almost always be missing those dynamic elements that make for a good story. There are few instances for your characters to show ingenuity, unexpected surprises to take them out of their comfort zone, moments to push them in new and exciting directions, or struggles to help them grow. It's perfect for well the theater club types but it will never equal a great tale of adventure.
You know, you are kind of right about the de-civilization thing. I didn't fully appreciate it until I got done writing my response but even the kinds of silly stories we make out of fictional tabletop characters say quite a bit about us.
Yes--seems to me civilisation is as much a matter of the beauty, order and complexity invested in 'useless' things as it is a matter of mere 'technique'.
Yes. Aside from the theater kids, I think another problem is that the modern game has been influenced by movies and video games. New players expect a D&D campaign to be like a movie, with a plucky band of destiny-chosen adventurers who start small and end up saving the world. Maybe they face some dangers along the way, but ultimately you know that if they keep fighting, they'll battle through and get the job done, because that's the way the story has to end. For that to happen, the campaign has to be fairly on-the-rails, and the difference between a skilled DM and a poor one is that the skilled one, like a well-designed RPG video game, is better at hiding the rails and making it *seem* like anything could happen.
But that's not how D&D used to be at all. You started out a low-level nobody and were far more likely to be killed by a giant rat on your first adventure than to become a great hero. If you were trying to save anything, it was a town or a castle, not the world. It was *possible* to advance a character to high levels where he can lead armies or battle gods on astral planes. But that would take many campaigns played over years, skilled players and DM, and a decent amount of luck, because without the DM keeping the story on the rails, bad things really could happen anytime. But usually you're just having fun hacking around through dungeons, gathering loot and trying to stay alive.
New or old players who want a *game* like that instead of an interactive epic storytelling method are going back to the 70s/80s versions, which as our host said can largely be had for free. Some call it the Old-School Rennaisance. Just wish I had time to get back into it myself.
Mr. Ape, I always appreciate a shout-out from you. Excellent piece. Your theater kid anthropology is spot-on and it explains so much. The theater kids are absolutely remaking everything in their lame image. We need to take it back.
Thanks for the shout-out, I really appreciate it.
For me, the D&D brand is dead. I've swapped over to other games that I enjoy far more whether solo or with friends and it's for the very reasons you mentioned.
I played D&D when I was 10 or 11 at school. Ya might say I was *temperamentally unsuited*: I beat up the DM one day mid-game and never played again.
In my early 20s I played magic once. Dragged along by a friend, I found myself embarassed and confused by it all and never went back.
I enjoyed this article all the same.
I think what you're referring to with this hostile theatre kid takeover is what ya might call de-civilisation: the hollowing-out of Western culture so that things retain their names, and the bare mechanisms ncecessary for their functioning, while they're divested of content. The content--the essence of the thing--is then replaced to fit the resentful narcissism of regime client groups.
See also: establishment Christianity, liberalism, socialism, even communism.
Good article, but I would really take note that AD&D 2nd edition is so different from its predecessor versions is that it's a completely different game. 1ed AD&D and the original D&D were wargames scaled down to first-person POV, but higher-level play was also built in. The transition from wargamer-led TTRPG to Frustrated Novelist / Director - led TTRPG, to what Jeffro Johnson and Brad Walker and aligned writers call "Conventional Play" (the current assumed model of play) is arguably what led to this phenomenon writ large. With the original D&D / AD&D being an outgrowth of wargaming, the barrier to entry was actually pretty high. Those versions of the game, played according to rules as written, are "always on" players playing at multiple levels - PC, faction, patron, and NOT having perfectly aligned interests - i.e, not the "One Party Uber Alles Get-Along-Gang" - no one would be able to play one and just one character forever. Because 1 to 1 time is assumed in that version, you have to play other characters, or you don't at all for long stretches. That's a wargame, which can be won, not a sit-down Improv session. The whole "There is no wrong way to play D&D" and "Rule 0" and "Session 0" culture that's built up is...wrong. It enables the Theater Kids.
Excellent work and excellent reading, as is so often the case with you, my good ape.
You've hit the nail squarely on the head with each point. I've been invested in this hobby for long enough that I witnessed this change happening in real time. I, along with many others, comprised a pair of the "boots on the ground," as it were. Back when I used to run my YouTube channel and speak more regularly about this sort of thing, I both got a lot of support from old heads like myself who were in the same boat, and a cavalcade of shit - a cacalcade, as I believe you recently put it? ;) - from the exact kind of shrieking neurotics you describe in this essay.
These troglodytes are a modern day form of low tier brigand; arrogant enough to think their ideas and desires are the end all, be all, and that all and sundry should cater exclusively to them, anyone else be damned. Yet the battlefields they choose, the tactics they use, and the reactions they give when pushed against reveal the truth of their weakness, particularly once greater public opinion comes into play. It's not just the hobbyist nerds and geeks, the *actual* ones like myself and my friends who did have to deal with being mocked daily for liking certain kinds of games, or the ones like my best friend's stepdad who lived through the Satanic Panic and had people try to throw blows at them over this, who dislike these trogs. Most everyone that exists outside of the "theater kid" bubble dislikes them, and deservedly so.
These "theater kids" are fucking insufferable. They're the Karens of the geek world, but worse because of the state of arrested development they're perpetually trapped in. And while it's already obvious from what I've said, I want the satisfaction of putting it to words: I hold these types in nothing but contempt.
Re: Forgotten Realms, yeah. It's bland, it's big, it's a patchwork of misappropriated tropes. The only thing worse is Pathfinder's in-house setting, which is like a parody of all the worst things about Forgotten Realms.
I guess the idea is that it's more of a framework than a setting. Here's all the generic bits and some maps, just add character (and characters).
I've never been a big fan of it. Some of the novels added some depth of history and culture to it, and that's the main reason why everything is centered around Waterdeep, etc. - because that's where all the good novels took place, on the northwest coast of (generic medieval european fantasy continent #1).
Some of the other canned settings are more interesting - Ravenloft, Dark Sun - but really, I don't think you can call yourself a DM/GM if you're not running your own thing. That's half the fun of it. Everybody else makes their characters, you make the world. If you're not doing that you're just a referee.
Here's the secret. No one needs prefabricated settings or modules at all. All you need is the 1ed DMG, PHB, and MM, and that's it. Sure, add in FF and DD if you want but they're optional.
You don't *really* need anything but paper, pencil, and some randomizer if the game calls for it. You can make your own rules. According to my kid you don't need the paper and pencil either, because laptops, like, exist, dad. But I'll stick to the pencil & paper.
These bastards have ruined two cherished parts of my childhood now. Boy Scouts, where I was introduced to AD&D in the late 80s, got skinsuited first. Yeah 5e turned Leftist hard. A big part of the turn are the "inclusive" Critters.
I went to Comic Con last year. The cast was the Saturday keynote panel. Beforehand outside, the "official" fan club got together for pictures in front of the hotel next to the San Diego Convention Center. All I heard were a bunch of tearful sharings of how Crit Role made them feel better or included or saved their life. Wow, it was all sooo... dramatic.
I still love D&D. I would love to game with some not Left people. My last campaign group wasted the DM's night one time going completely off the rails to stop this jerk of a mayor from being mean to the townspeople. I spent the whole night "sitting in the tavern drinking" while the three millennials in the group went "crusading."
This is exactly why so many have fled to Warhammer. You can't un-male it, dumb it down, make it flamboyant and theatre kid friendly. Its nature is anathema to these types, with the exception of some slightly autistic youtubers.
That and it brings the monster out to the surface of the feminine. For some reason Tyranids are the usual pick for woman, whether they play or merely paint. Gieger was on to something deep in the female psyche, about forced unions and consuming anatomy. I have yet to hear about one such women being a source of drama.
Eh, I don't know. They sure seem be trying their damndest there too. :P I suspect it's only a matter of time. See: the whole female Space Marine* kerfuffle.
On a slightly more serious note, considering how over the top, flamboyant and yes, even camp WH is in many ways, I think there's definitely an avenue for the theater kids there.
*Or whatever pseudo-Latin term it was, I only played WH Fantasy back in the day and never got too much into 40K lore
Here's a DnD 2e clone/knock-off freebie:
https://www.basicfantasy.org/
Play the game you want, build the world you want, run it how you want. That was the premise in the original game. I know; I'm that old I was playing it.
I prefer RuneQuest III rules with my own setting, built from the ground up.
Once the wokester trash/theater kids/emo moron fucks take over something, it's as dead as Julius Caesar. Dump it and move on.
WOTC always sucked dong; we felt the life go out of DnD when Gygax was oustered. We moved on to other RPGs and left our favorite game in the dust. It was turning into something we didn't want and couldn't afford.
Forgotten Realms was also a long running series of books; read the books to get the feel of the realm.
I know I’m going to be in the minority here. But when did the live and let live attitude become bad? I don’t like WotC much myself, but I love adding more inclusive things like people in wheelchairs and changing race to ancestry. Maybe that’s just me. But I dislike 5E for reasons that are mechanical, not to “own the libs”.
If you don't mind a comment from someone who's not the author, I'll try to answer this in good faith, since I'm an example of someone who's frustrated with present-day "woke" WotC, but also doesn't care much for the hard-right traditionalist social conservative angle. Or in other words: the idea of "what's the big deal, guys, it's only a little inclusion" does rub me the wrong way when it's clearly much more than that, but I'm also willing to meet you halfway to an extent.
Much of this started from good intentions. I fully agree that pop culture as it stood in, say, 1990 could do with more representation of people who weren't white and heterosexual, and that it could often be comicially insensitive and objectifying towards women. As with many things, I feel we found a good compromise somewhere in the 2000s. Since then, IMO it's taken more of an ugly turn, for the reasons laid out by our host in this essay.
So what are my problems with it? One big problem is how forced and jarring it is. All this stuff is jammed into every fictional setting, regardless of whether it fits. Having the occasional person in a wheelchair in fiction? In a work set in the modern world, sure. In D&D it's obviously absurd and only there as crass virtue-signalling. As someone who's not from the US, it also feels like modern American culture and politics being shoved into all these fictional worlds, giving them a samey feel and making the whole thing feel like it's more about a pissing match with those oh so evilly evil Republicans rather than an exercise in imagination.
There's also the authoritarian bent to it. You're not allowed to disagree with any of this without being an evil bigot. Zero room for discussion, and they'll often indulge in cheap sleights of hands, like insinuating that you don't care about handicapped people in the real world if you think wheelchairs in the Forgotten Realms is a laughable concept. Plus, these things tend to come as part of a wider ideology. Look at, say, how eagerly WotC embraced Covid authoritarianism and virtue signalling during the pandemic.
They also tend to be very gung-ho about promoting some groups (ie. black people and trans) in particular, and often by simply dropping them into existing worlds. It feels shallow. If they cared so much about African history and culture, why don't they make more settings explicitly based on them? I'll also that admit that the relentless pushing of all the trans stuff gets a bit tiring for those of us who don't always agree with all the politics around that issue. So yes, there is an element of "stop reminding me you disagree with me politically all the time in my escapism", even if that's a little childish. :P That aside, it's another very 21st century American cultural thing that IMO stands out like a sore thumb in other settings. And they should acknowledge it's a controversial issue and handle it more tactfully, even if I'm not demanding they change their very pro-trans stance. Just be aware that many of their customers won't agree and show some tact.
Another aspect is the over-representation. Ie., these works emphasize black and gay/trans people so much it's wildly out of proportion to how large a fraction they actually comprise of the American population, so it again starts feeling forced and like scoring political points rather than natural.
So yes, in principle I agree that avoiding crass stereotypes and acknowledging that other ethnicities than white Europeans exist in fiction is a positive step. Again, as we largely had in the 2000s. That doesn't mean I support this new social justice ideology that tends to be shrill, constantly looking for the smallest bit of wrongthink or offence, and that imposes an artificial template of modern US West Coast culture on every fictional work. Inclusivity that fits and is done in an elegant and nuanced way? Sure. The current hyper-politicized and tone-deaf way, not so much.
As for the language thing, I actually agree on "race", which has a lot of unfortunate real-world baggage, and never made much sense in D&D to begin with anyway. These are obviously different species, not "races". On the other hand, you have stuff like WotC arbitrarily deciding words like "tribal" or "witch" are suddenly oh so problematic for spurious reasons. (It's amusing to me that it apparently never occurred to them that "Druid" is used by a real religious group too in the Druid Revival, but then again I'd never imagine any modern Druid would take offence to its use in MtG.)
Apologies for the semi-rant, but hopefully this can be one example of how the "other side" feels that might be useful.
That last sentence, holy moly it's all true. We're at the mercy of trained histrionics. I got into RPGs with Call of Cthulhu (which is just better designed and has a better setting). And I'll just say out of the several games I plaid from D&D none of them reached completion (yet). Why? Well here's my point: popularizing the game made everyone miss the point of why you play D&D or an TTRPG: for the social experience and not just for a story. I think stuff like critical role popularized and bastardized it simultaneously... but what am I complaining for. That's been the story of everything everywhere since stuff could be marketed and sold.
I've always had a dislike for the Forgotten Realms setting. Every time I tried to read a story set there, my instincts would scream that it would be poisonous to my enjoyment of fantasy across the board.
Also, I have a fondness for Travis McElroy's brand of humor. I know that puts me in the minority, but so be it.
Oh and wow is still MMO king. Speaking as an SoD guildmaster.