by Davane » December 2nd, 2020, 6:33 am
The original "bard" character as a hero class was actually an excuse for some mad multi-classing action in a system that didn't really include it very well. The bard is the ultimate JOAT class - a character that can fight, use magic, has some skills, and so forth. Bards could literally do a little bit of everything at the expense of mastery in any one class. In 1st edition AD&D, you could become a bard by first spending five levels as a fighter, another five to eight levels as a thief, and then several more levels as a druid (which was essentially a Magic-User/Cleric mix already). Only then could the become a bard, which basically allowed them to advance all of these three classes at once.
In AD&D 2nd Edition, the requirements to become a bard were dropped, but the theme wasn't - the Bard was still a JOAT class that can do pretty much a little bit of everything at the expense of mastery in any given subject. However, the Bard's thieving skills were reduced to just Picking Pockets, which kind of removed the point of being a thief in the first place. So, the theme would become much more fighter/mage like, just as the ranger was fighter/druid, and the paladin was fighter/cleric.
In 3rd edition, the thief was replaced by the rogue, which was more a generalised skill user, using the d20 skills system that incorporated AD&D thieving skills into the mix. Thus the rogue itself became more of an agile skill-based fighter, rather than a tank. Accordingly, the bard finally solidified into a form of rogue/mage. D&D 3.x also included a unique spell list for the Bard, differentiating them from druids and mages of earlier editions, but still having a focus on a fairly unique blend of arcane and divine magic, avoiding many of the overtly flashy magical effects (like fireballs) but bypassing the idea that arcane magic users shouldn't have access to healing spells. Oh, and with the normalisation of the sorcerer as an alternative mage, thus reducing the reliance on Vancian magic (the memorise, cast, forget approach), the bard ended up pretty much as it is now - a rogue/sorcerer.
The problem is that this archetype of rogue/sorcerer already existed in HQ for quite some time - as the Elf. Many Elf players commonly take Earth or Water as their spell group, both of which contain Healing spells, so pretty much all the bases for playing a Bard in HQ are already covered. The only thing lacking is not having the Dwarf ability to disarm traps, but this stopped being a fundamental part of the Bard concept some time ago, and HQ doesn't have much of an official skills system to replace it with.
That's why the idea of an Orc Bard is quite jarring in HQ. An Elven Bard probably wouldn't have raised an eyebrow, although after seeing AHQ and WHQ, there were already thoughts that the Elf may actually be replaced by an Elf Archer instead. After all, an Elven Bard is just a variant HQ Elf already. It literally feels like Teos has decided to replace everything Elvish as being Orcish, for no other reason than to get in on the Diversity in D&D zeitgeist. He's going to have to work REALLY HARD to make that NEW Ancient Orc Kingdom of Advanced Magic Users to not end up being the standard Ancient Elven Kingdom of Advanced Magic Users with a "funny mask" paintjob.
Teos could have gone with an Orc Barbarian, Orc Warrior, Orc Mercenary, or even an Orc Knight, and been much more plausible than an Orc Bard. The Warhammer World already has Orc Mercenaries (Dogs of War, anyone), so it could have been easily handwaved by fans without being so jarring, and provided some degree of continuity. Instead, it seems he went for shock factor and now the bard has been set extremely high to see him and Hasbro make it work.
Hasbro doesn't have any real need to rewrite the Warhammer World, since the Warhammer World is itself generic fantasy. Some of the lore would need changing, but GW doesn't own the rights to generalised tropes like Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, and Empires. Just as WotC don't own the rights to the generalised tropes of Dungeons or Dragons. Technically, GW doesn't even own the rights to the generalised trope of Chaos, so there wasn't any need for Chaos Warriors to become Dread Warriors. All we are really seeing is Hasbro trying to prove that they are not using the Warhammer World in any way, to divorce the brand from GW. However, it all seems rather pointless, when half the community are just going to ignore the changes and continue playing HQ in the Warhammer World, and the other half already don't set HQ in the Warhammer World in the first place.
Now, for the politics - I would be categorised as far left, and I am all for social justice. However, SJW's sicken me, because the defining characteristic of SJW's is that they fight for social justice in all the wrong places. They want to change things for the sake of change, trying to tap into a modern zeitgeist of social justice, without understanding why social justice is actually important. They don't understand a lot of things - such as the point of storytelling and tropes, or even basic concepts like "show, don't tell." They want to rewrite the past, yet have little concept of the past, or the implications of their actions. Plus, when it comes to gaming, especially tabletop gaming, they can't seem to differentiate between what's in game and what's out of game.
Outside the game, the majority demographic of gamers are heterosexual, white, male teens. But that's only because the normative demographic of Europe and the US, where gaming is a highly dominant sector, is that of heterosexual, white, male teens. Thus, advertisers - who know sex sells - will tailor their marketing to cater for heterosexual, white, male teens. The demographics of gamers are changing, slowly, because gaming itself isn't exclusive to heterosexual, white, male teens - but since gaming is typically a hobby for life, this will still be the majority for some time, good or bad, except that most of those teens have now grown up. I know I have (in age, if not maturity, at least)!
Social justice is about encouraging more people to play, to make the gaming community more diverse, and open to all. Don't put barriers in the way that say if you aren't heterosexual, white, male, or teen, you can't be a gamer. That's total BS. There shouldn't be a need for racism, sexism, homophobia, or anything else at the gaming table. Challenging these things at the gaming table makes sense.
In game, things are different. It's a fantasy world of storytelling, and the key feature is often choosing what stories to focus on telling. Not everyone wants a moral dilemma every time they take part in an action sequence. Not everyone wants to deal with storylines about prejudice and discrimination all the time. These can make for gripping stories, but only if they are the types of stories that you want to deal with at that time. Gaming has been diverse for some time - sure, you have musclebound barbarian warriors like Conan the Barbarian, but you also have the likes of Red Sonja too. In worlds of conflict, often of epic proportions, the little difference don't seem to matter as much. When there's actual monsters to fight, heroes don't have to make up new ones to give them a sense of purpose.
Most games are escapism, so we don't have to deal with the petty differences within our real lives. When you can fight monsters, what's it matter what colour skin that other human has, as long as they are fighting the monsters with you? Who cares if that Paladin is male or female, when you are facing Demons from the Abyss? Sexuality becomes much less of a concern when you are fighting to survive day to day in a devastated wasteland following a nuclear apocalypse. In worlds where magic can not only raise you from the dead, but change your very being, a lot of the tiny details don't necessarily matter unless you make them matter. BEcause that's what we do with stories - we simplify things down to the point that we get to only what actually matters. It makes them easier to convey.
I read through D&D books now, and they are littered with diversity, that has little or no relevance to me. What do I care if two male farmers decide to live together as a couple? Or if that Elf and Dwarf bonded over a mutual adventuring career and retired as a couple to run a tavern together? Nice little stories, but when an big metal dragon is destroying the town, do I really need to know or be bothered? I'm not going to have time to think about it, and chances are once it's over, they will probably exit stage left and I move on elsewhere because the world always needs saving.
It might be slightly more important if I am hired by a woman to protect her from her murderous ex-lover magic user who's planning to nuke the town, to know that she's actually into women, not men, but only because it changes who I am looking at as potential threats. Since the trope is based on a heteronormative society, changing the relationship to a homosexual one is subverting the trope, and provides an interesting twist, but it only works if the heteronormative trope exists in the first place. Without the heteronormative trope, it's not a twist, it's an irrelevance, as you should be looking for both male and female threats anyway.
This is the whole point of tropes in storytelling in the first place. They tell you what's normal, so that what's not normal stands out, and therefore becomes important to the story. If the trope is Orcs are monsters, then the Orcs that aren't monsters are going to stand out, and be deemed important. If too many Orcs aren't monsters, the trope ceases to exist, and Orcs that are not monsters become less important. Orcs become another part of the background noise of irrelevance that are just people, and the impact of using Orcs as a storytelling tool becomes blunted, and another monster rises to fill it's place, so you can make the non-monster monsters stand out.
SJW's can't seem to understand that there's a distinction between what is in game and what is out of game. We don't live in a world full of monsters - we live in a world full of people, many of whom seek to turn other people into monsters in the eyes of others. They use many of the same storytelling techniques that games use to define monsters, but use them to dehumanise people. But what most gaming is actually doing is teaching people the coded terms to define monsters, so that you can spot when they are being used against you and other people. More importantly, they are teaching you how to define between people and monsters, until you get to the point you realise that monsters is actually just a coded term for "the enemy", and that who we define as monsters and people is entirely up to us. Gaming teaches us about storytelling, so we can learn to be critical of the stories being told to us, and not just believe the BS we are fed by people who basically want to tell us how to think, so we don't have to...
I’m sorry ... that’s Destiny ...
