74 points

‘lore accurate mods’

it’s a fictional work, the only thing it has to be accurate to is itself!

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53 points
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It’s such a reactionary dog whistle. I used to be one of those “lore accurate” nerds for Tolkein. But for stuff like, “It’s Dwarves, not Dwarfs, that was intentional by Tolkein so we should use Dwarves as the plural.”

When I saw the same nerds I used to argue unimportant shit like that with turn around and say “The elves can’t be black and I’m not racist it’s just the lore” I ran out of there so fast.

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4 points

I actually think elves should be dark skined. They have long limbs and slender bodies. Allens rule says this is a trait of tropical animals. Then you add the long ears with a lot of surface area those likley evolved as a way of termoregulating like those on the fenec fox or similar animals.

So these are clearly adapted to a more tropical enviorment than regular humans. And since skin color is also correlated with latitude you would expect them to be generally darker skined. Except from some outling populations that moved north and adapted to colder climates and agricultural diets outside of the forests.

Dark elves on the other hand. Should be very pale since thay live underground. Think mole rats.

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3 points

underground pigments don’t always tend lighter. Sometimes things stay dark, like mole’s fur, or many beetles.

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38 points

it used to mean “this doesn’t have thomas the tank engine or anime characters in it”

now it usually means “no gay stuff”

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22 points

I’ll be cold dead in the ground before I recognize “Macho Man Randy Savage dragons” are not lore accurate.

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17 points

it’s a fictional work, the only thing it has to be accurate to is itself!

Earlier versions of that fiction are likely to have more

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17 points

its wild

for one the official lore of faerun is so jumbled and often contradictory over the years that you could almost say anything about it and it would be true according to one official source of another

on the other hand because the lore is a cooperative element of each table who is actively playing the game and thereby writing it as they go along anything you like is lore accurate because you are one of the writers of the lore yourself as a player and a gm

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I’m more interested in ‘based mods’ in this context

Mods to make female characters more scantily clad and have shittier stats (also no black people) would be my bet as to what this mouth breather considers ‘based’

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7 points

I think they’re referring to a specific mod website that allows mods that nexusmods will take down - so think homophobia, racism, sexism etc

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60 points
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Lore accurate mods probably means adding boobs to lizards and making black people white if I had to guess (yes both exist)

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One of the coolest things about reptiles is gender ambiguity. No boobs, they have a genital slit and many of them have a retractable penis, sometimes two. Some female reptiles and choose whether or not to get pregnant and/or store cum for later. Imagine how interesting a society like that would be, and what kinds of gender roles, relationship norms, and such would shake out.

That’s the kind of stuff fantasy could really explore. Turning them into people with scales, keeping the obvious secondary sexual characteristics, is fucking boring and played out.

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31 points

many of them have a retractable penis

sometimes two

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22 points
Deleted by creator
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26 points

Yeah honestly, give me a sapient dinosauroid with a raptor body type instead. Then humans would actually be unique with their better endurance and throwing ability as well as major disadvantages like chronic back pain and arthritis. As it is now with all these humanoids people love to pump out, you just end up with humans being a lame default option that everything else is compared to and has unique perks over.

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7 points

In Morrowind they had goofy legs and couldn’t wear boots or helmets iirc.

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22 points
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Yes, unfortunately a lot of big fictional worlds lack creativity. When it comes to making sapient species, Egyptian god -looking anthros are the most interesting thing they can produce.

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To be honest, it’s just easier for the devs when every character in the game can use the same equipment and animations

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8 points

What I’m reading here is we need more exotic genitalia in our mainstream video games

Let me play as a male bee person whose dick explodes when he cums

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Those who are against lizard boobs are against me

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43 points

Then prepare to die!

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27 points
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Boobless lizards is a world I don’t want to live in.

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11 points

Boobless lizard world or lizardless boobworld? The choice is yours.

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To anyone upset at this take: Let PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS enjoy things

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Noticer? Morel ike notice deez nuts

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It’s funny because they’re trying to come up with a term that’s equal to woke but isn’t woke.

“noticer” or “vigilant” or some other synonym for woke that isn’t “asleep”

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17 points

Hey daddy-o, are you hep to the space lasers?

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49 points

Lore Accurate Dungeons and Dragons? A world built specifically to be a storytelling framework for custom stories?

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they’re a gygaxhead for sure

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23 points

Real D&Dheads know that the Forgotten Realms setting was written by Ed Greenwood to be weird and horny.

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Fun fact: bisexual is the default in Faerun according to Greenwood.

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6 points
Ed Greenwood, creator of the Forgotten Realms, replying to a fan on matters of sex and sexuality in his setting, September 2004

Zandilar, the quick answer to your initial question is that every time I try to write anything non-standard regarding gender and characters who are “strong”/dominant or “weak”/submissive [strong females paired or interacting with weaker males, for example, such as Shandril and Narm] my editors have fits (“Doesn’t fit our readership! Will hurt sales! Must fix at once!”). Such things “don’t fit” the genre expectations.

In various ways, there’s been a (usually friendly) tug-of-war between me and TSR/WotC/Hasbro over various details of the Realms since my first hints of the Realms were published in (what was then) “The Dragon” back in 1979. The “original” Realms, “my” Realms, was my own imaginary fantasy setting for fiction before D&D® ever existed, and then my own D&D campaign world for years before it became an “official” D&D® setting. It was purchased to be the official ‘home’ of the 2nd Edition D&D® game, and therefore by definition had to be, and still must be, ‘all things to all people.’

(…)

It should come as news to no one that many consumers, particularly in the United States, have religious and societal views that clash with in-thy-face lesbian, gay male, and bisexual lifestyles. With that said, yes there are a LOT of “non-modern-real-world-American-mores-standard” relationships in the Realms. I don’t make a big issue of it for several reasons.

First, offending some fans as referred to above. Secondly, TSR Code of Ethics/WotC and Hasbro Code of Conduct prohibitions (e.g. on sodomy, incest, etc.) and editorial censorship, which has (as some scribes have already noted) by and large been relaxing over the years, but has occasionally reached ridiculous heights. For example, I once had a fight with a DRAGON assistant editor over an article (which I refused to finish, under such conditions) wherein I wrote that many Arthurian tales describe Lancelot and Guinevere as “lovers,” and was told that I couldn’t use the word “lovers” or IN ANY WAY IMPLY extramarital sex (i.e. Arthur could be assumed to make love to his wife so long as I made no direct reference to it, but I couldn’t even hint that someone else could). Sheesh. I directed the editor to the standard roster of Greek and Roman myths, legends, and fables for hardcore sexual hijinks, but she dismissed my point as irrelevant.

So what you correctly refer to as “dance around definitions,” Zandilar, is how staffers at WotC have to operate, and merely good business sense (again, those who wish to read the obvious hints re. lifestyles can do so, and those offended by such matters don’t get their noses rubbed in it so harshly that it ruins their enjoyment of the setting). simontrinity is correct in saying that I can go much farther in sexual matters (and, yes, innuendo, which I enjoy) these days than I could when I started writing Realms books. So the horizons ARE widening.

However, my great friend and Realms-champion Steven Schend has, as usual, already said it best in this thread: that we shouldn’t be defining characters by their sexual preferences. There’s far more to people than their jobs, or their hobbies, or how they like to dress, or how they engage in sexual behaviour.

I’ve actually written many gay (and far more bi- ) males and females into the Realms that NO ONE recognizes as such, purely because they DON’T adopt modern real-world sterotypical styles (such as so-called “butch” behaviour or effeminate “limp-wristed and lisping”).

In “my” Realms, there’s no general prejudice against love of same gender or love of both genders. There ARE individuals who hold such prejudices, and in general, members of nobility or royalty or any other group in which lineage and inheritance is important frown on deviance from whatever their locally accepted norm of pairing is, so that “the line can be maintained in a clear, can’t-be-challenged manner.”

I’m not sure if you’ll see a clearly lesbian or gay male character in a novel soon, because the only way to give them that status “clearly” is to engage in protracted sex scenes, which are seldom okay with editors.

And yes, I regard your problem (“I personally would love to see characters in the Realms that I can personally relate to, and I keep coming up short.”) as something that Realms fiction as a whole should address, for as wide a variety of Realms readers as we can collectively manage. So in design or creative terms, there is or should be a “place at the table” for, say, openly lesbian characters.

Bear in mind, however, that many Realms fans delight in pouncing on me for being a dirty-minded “pervert” (most of them, of course, not even understanding the meaning of that word) for merely showing casual nudity, kissing, caresses, and even footrubs in my fiction… things many Canadians (and, from my conversations with them, more than a few Americans) who went to summer camp in their teens accepted as normal in such settings. (And being as the Realms is “my” setting, I get to define what is ‘normal’ in the Realms; that’s even in the original Realms agreement).

(…)

On to polyamory (committed relationships): quite common in backlands Realms villages, often ‘dressed up’ in annual festival customs (such as Midsummer Night) to make the maximum number of people comfortable with it. In many farming and frontier areas of the Realms, “families” dwelling and working together may consist of several males and several females, not “one-man-one-woman.” Again, don’t expect this to be underscored in print in official products, because it points towards incest and the polygamous controversies current in some American states, and in general upsets some folks who might otherwise happily buy Realms products. Remember the editorial fits I caused just mentioning brothelsXXXX ahem, “festhalls.” My view was that I was just reporting, a la National Geographic: ‘The native women have long, floppy…’ and the TSR editors disagreed violently. BTW, the very existence of all those brothels point to the number of men and women in the Realms who want casual sex, or who don’t get what they want at home, or who don’t want to wait until they get home. Sex IS alive and well in the Realms.

Please also always remember that the long-lived members of the Chosen are EXCEPTIONS to the rules: their very longevity and loss of sanity leads them to grasp at affection whenever they can, and to consider themselves so far beyond all notions of prudishness and propriety (they’ve outlived entire kingdoms full of social thou-shalt-nots, and been around long enough to see many priesthoods make major changes in doctrine) that they just don’t care what others may think of them – unless they need the support and aid of particular “others” at the moment.

So, yes, Alustriel does take pleasure in hosting orgies in which she physically enjoys both males and females, and lots of them enjoy each other, and lah dee dee dah dah. This does not make her a nymphomaniac, an empty-headed lust bunny, or deficient in any way. In fact, she’s achieved more through seduction and founding firm friendships and making others long for another chance to dive into the comfort of one of Alustriel’s large and well-filled baths than many rulers ever manage with dozens of treaties and scores of wars, skirmishes, and threats.

If you need validation, yes, Alustriel and Zelauma make love. Storm makes love with both guys and gals (the Harpers don’t regard her as a ‘den mother’ for nothing :} ). Think of her as the comforting arms they run to, for advice and soothing companionship and understanding. However, she does as much listening and dispensing warm soup as she does riding and being ridden.

So let me say just this much: most males in the Realms weep, hug, and even caress and kiss as much as real-world modern females do. How comfortable a given character is with doing such things with others of the same gender (or, for that matter, with persons of different races) varies widely – but it’s safe to say that given the opportunity, most characters have “tried everything” at least once, and between travelers outside their own communities (where such acts might well upset family members, especially if loss of virginity is involved), there’s little or no stigma in such experimentation.

Source: http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/sse/sse_080910-04.htm

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16 points

Even Gygax wasn’t terribly orthodox. The setting was a grab bag of high fantasy, lovecraftian horror, steampunk alt-history, and Greek tragedy.

He never had a problem throwing a goblin, a minotaur, a vampire, and a robot in the same dungeon.

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i’m not talking about his orthodoxy, i’m suggesting that someone wanting to make baldur’s gate 3 “non-woke” and “lore accurate,” they’re dogwhistling towards the reactionary elements of gygax’s setting of dnd, of which there are many

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13 points

Gygax pill me please. Didn’t he want you to only be able to play as humans? What other wonderful chauvinisms did he have?

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22 points

Gygax on alignment:

Paladins are not stupid, and in general there is no rule of Lawful Good against killing enemies. The old adage about nits making lice applies. Also, as I have often noted, a paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good. They are then sent on to their reward before they can backslide.

[…]

Chivington might have been quoted as saying “nits make lice,” but he is certainly not the first one to make such an observation as it is an observable fact. If you have read the account of wooden Leg, a warrior of the Cheyenne tribe that fought against Custer et al., he dispassionately noted killing an enemy squaw for the reason in question.”

Love to use historical genocidal racism as a basis for a morality system! Its apolitical though, you’re not allowed to have reservations about an admitted racist representing certain peoples as inherently evil and worthy of extermination. That’s not even getting into DnD portrayals of “darkest Africa” and “the mysterious Orient”

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10 points
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He was a horrid cryptofascist, and he let it fully out when he declared that (CW: child murder)

spoiler

slaughtering the children of ‘born evil’ races is always a good act.

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41 points
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“noticing some issues with the lore here”

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