Racist space DND

 huh.

Dungeons and Dragons is one of the most wide spread table-top role playing engines that exists within the world today, and it remains so relevant today through the way that the game manages to constantly empower the imagination and creativity of players. When the stories are created in your own heads tied only to set of rules that are as malleable as you need them to be, there really is no limit to the number of stories one can feasibly tell using hardly more than the base veneer of Dungeons and Dragons; which is why so many role playing and tabletop games over the years have sought to either adapt the DnD ruleset or specialise their offerings of rules to hone in on a specific type of experience that Dungeons doesn't cover. Dnd is kind of like the baseline. But when you have so many personalities and ideas adding to the tabletop roleplaying world, as with anything that becomes a collaborative effort, you open yourself up to... influences. Not always the best kind, either.

One of the oldest Table Top roleplaying games from all the way back in the eighties (if you're curious, Dnd dates back to 74) was on Star Frontiers, which took the renewed interest in high-flung Science Fantasy bubblegum to launch a system that was... moderately received. It doesn't sound like people really liked it all that much, which is probably why you've never heard of it whilst Warhammer and the like are niche, but have a following even to this day. If anything, it serves as a slice of retrofuturism for those that find the quaint charm in that subsector of sci-fi; and though it's splash in the annals of history may be slight, it still matters to some people even to this day which is the most anyone can ask for; isn't it? Huh? It's coming back? But... but why? (Actually there was another revival but I can find next to no information on it despite an apparent recent launch so I can assume it didn't do exceptionally.)

The original Star Frontiers was actually published by TSR, the original publishers of Dnd, which makes it a special kind of symmetry that this new edition of the game, entitled New Genesis, should be targeted today by Dnd's new caretakers; Wizards of the Coast. This new 'edition' of the game is published by TSR LLC, who apparently aren't the TSR who made the original because they were bought and then allowed to go defunct by Wizards. This is a new TSR who uses the name after Wizards allowed the old one's name to run out on Copyright and this is all very confusing and I don't know why I spent half an hour reading up on it all. Except for I guess it helps us draw lines of distinction between the players in this little party. TSR proposed to make this new edition, Wizards bought the rights to Star Frontiers back when they bought the original TSR, so this was already heading for a bit of a kerfuffle; but a recent public filing against TSR to block the publishing of this game has unveiled a few extra herbs and spices in this particular story.

You see, TSR's current custodians have a very questionable grasp over the copyright they claim ownership over. In fact, the entire history of the people who have assumed the name TSR and then been scared of it to start their own companies is sizable. Now the current CEO is a guy called Justin LaNasa, and all I can find about his version of TSR up until now is the fact that they published a game called 'Tales & Tots' which appears to be some sort of 'my first roleplaying game' system aimed at 2 year olds. I have no idea what is in said system, but considering the sort of stuff that Justin is into, I wouldn't recommending picking up that system for you Toddler. It might start giving it very strange ideas about the concept of race equality. (Ah, but I'm getting far ahead of myself.)

LaNasa, seemingly blatantly flaunting in the face of basic copyright law, recently released a playtest of his new version of Star Frontiers, which then was promptly leaked onto the Web for all to see and it is a doozy... When I heard tell of Wizard targeting this version of the game for 'racist ovetones' I scoffed a little bit. Wizards have grown embarrassingly oversensitive about appearing 'racist' after a few unfortunate parallels were drawn between snippets of lore in their game, which has now blossomed into such a paranoia that they're hastening to rewrite Dnd to ensure that no races can have anything remotely 'evil' or 'bad' in their past which could be interpreted as a racial bias. Which means Dark Elves lose a lot of that evil edge what made them cool (you could have just renamed them to Deep Elves or something) and they've even gone some distance to soften up on the lore of Beholders. Yes, the giant eyeballs with tentacles that turn people to stone. I'm not going to lie... there is literally nothing you could conjure up in your script-brain storming sessions that is going to make people not see a giant floating death eye as anything less than an evil monster from hell. It is a floating eye. Come on. What I'm trying to say is; Wizards are prone to exploding over nothing these days, so I took these allegations of racism in a competitor's product as little more than legal spin to strengthen their case; then I read the points of contention.

It's all in that spineless tongue-in-cheek approach to racism where literally everyone in the world can read between the hilariously thin veil and read the obvious subtext, but the writer maintains the vague whisper of plausible deniability to throw his hands up in the air and say he's being framed. Not least of all for his race of, naturally unintelligent but decently physically strong, rage of dark skinned aliens he just happened to name after the Spanish word for black as if the basic connotations aren't obvious. Using the double connotation of the word 'sub race' so he can example Asian, African and Mexican people as 'sub human' whilst hiding behind the excuse that he's 'just discussing systems'. Explaining for the 'looks' attribute that  a 0 is 'unbearably ugly' with providing examples such as 'large noses or narrow noses, large or thin lips or oval eyes. Be creative.' And then literally just throwing caution to wind and asks if you are a "SJW warrior pushing your values onto others." My man wrote this in a book full of sad dog whistles desperately trying to code his personal ideology into a table top play system in the hope it spreads to others; how's that for irony?

And if you're curious about the kind of man who would bother to try and make a Dnd System just to try and 'stick it to the libs', I'm decently sure he's an ex republican mayoral candidate who left his own party because, in so many words, they weren't 'Right enough' for him. So that's the kind of guy you've got trying to muscle his way into the Table top space recycling names that don't appear to belong to him. I do wonder how a man who ran for public office can't seem to grasp basic copyright law, which the only reason I have to doubt that little snippet of lore, but the images from the news corresponds with his Twitter so I can only assume that is a fact. This genius thinks he can brag his way through copyright law whilst virtue signalling about how overbearing the 'libs' are compared to himself. And you though table tops were all fantasy no drama!

Wizards have had a lot of scrutiny dunked on them over the past few years for perceived racial bias in a fantasy world, and they've folded under that pressure time and time again in a bid to try and prove they're not weaving some deeply racist tabletop conspiracy. And maybe after this lawsuit those same people who rant at every piece of Dnd lore that isn't entirely fangless will be able to contrast an actual racially charged nutjob with a the stuff Dnd is doing and realise; "huh, maybe I'm shouting at phantoms?" At the very least I can probably say that this kerfuffle is the single biggest jump in exposure that Star Frontiers has ever had as a franchise. (If only the original creators could see their baby now.)