Here at The Department of Garlanded Nitpicking, we always specify both the species and the profession of a character. Though you are essentially right, liches can only be undead, much to the horror of freedom of choice advocates... at least in theory. After all, if you can have an Orcish Arch-Mage and a High-Elf Barbarian, why not a re-animated/living Gnomish Lich? It's not Undead any longer, but you know what they say: old habits die hard.

Fantasy races like orcs, elves etc. are more like species in the real world imo, not the equivalent of different ethnic groups and intra-species subpopulations. So this is just dumb.

I suppose one might see an issue with depiction of some human cultures in the setting (does Kata-Tur include stereotypes of devious orientals?). But the stuff about orcs and drow which have no real world analogues is absurd.

I wanted to reply to this earlier, but after reading the linked article in the OP I facepalmed so hard I have been hospitalized for days.

Since you chose Gnome, I'd have said old Hobbits die hard.

Well.
This certainly isn't the same as how Exalted was a system with great ideas and tons of unfortunate lore because the creators were in Southern Georgia; so southern that the town the game was made in so happened to have the equivalent of the Confederate Mt. Rushmore.

In fact, the lore of the first & second edition of Exalted was so unfortunate, that it was recommended by most players to take several pages out from the rulebook and cast them to the flame.

Archliches can already be Lawful Good. In fact they can't be Evil.

Well, I had no idea someone already thought this through - what I was mostly trying to say, jokingly, is that morality/alignment is subjective (or at least it's not exactly math, though there's usually a social agreement to it) even in real life, let alone in an imagined setting, so this whole discussion is ridiculous.

I am sure somewhere (IRL) a Chaotic Evil mob boss thinks of himself as a perfectly Neutral Good character to his local community. Oh, hi Mark!

Imagine being offended from a discussion about the concept of race in fantasy settings.

The funny thing about this to me is they're saying Orcs were a black stand-in, which I never considered them to be and they denied before. I mean, there are black humans in most fantasy games alongside orcs. This just seems silly and more racist than doing nothing, honestly.

We live in a crazy moment though where tensions are so high everyone's trying to do something, and they barely care what that something is.

Huh, don't remember there being a ton of arguments about the lore on the white wolf forums. The biggest arguments were always about game mechanics - like how Dragonblooded Immaculates could beat up Solar Exalted (prior to high essence charms) or just how broken Sidereal Martial Arts was. The most vitriol I saw about lore was that a lot of people hated Ketchup Carjack because he was a righteous dick.

Yes, there was a ton of inequality in the world but they were problems player characters were meant to solve.

That is just it, these are FANTASY settings and not our own reality and some random players don't oft care what that hobgoblin they slew for their shiny loot thought of themselves.

Players oft want their enemies to be one big amorphous blob of evil (or good if they are playing an evil character) so they can slay them and be done with it, not to have to stop and ponder the moral leanings and the like of every lower level enemy they come across.

(Of course the same can be said about some gamers generally speaking)

All in all I think some just do not want the canon to be changed much just for the sake of getting good pr buzz from whatever rag is covering it. And I think that is a reasonable thing to want. Companies and developers should perhaps change things to make the story better and the like, not just to get good pr in current year.

Much of the point about Fantasy games, and Fantasy and speculative fiction in general, is that you can have things that don't exist in real life, like "alignments". You can even have whole "races" (species would be more correct as long as they can't breed with humans) that have an Evil or Good alignment.

Fantasy is also escapism, but unfortunately it seems impossible to escape real life Identity Politics these days.

The best thing about these crazy times of mass hysteria and book burning is that nearly everything from the 20th century (games, literature, music) is now available digitally for free, for "free" or cheaply.

Not arguments. Just outright statements

The intro of a campaign here by a group goes over the highlights.

WotC has done something like that in 2014 where their objective was to seperate sex from gender. Browse to page 33 of the Basic Rules draft to see how they done it. Similarly they've been trying to seperate race and culture in Eberron: Rising from the Last War of which the following quotes have been taken:

ORCS AND HALF-ORCS
Orcs and half-orcs do feel a certain pull toward vio­lence and anger. But the simple truth is that there is no curse of ruin. No supernatural power drives orcs to kill. Rather, they are simply victims of the same selfish, vio­lent impulses that corrupt all mortal beings.

HALF-ORCS IN THE DWENDALIAN EMPIRE
Half-orcs are proud of their heritage, though many are wary of the wrathful curse that supposedly drives them to violence. Those who embrace this gift of fury often enlist in the Righteous Brand to focus their rage against the enemies of the empire. Other half-orcs reject the idea that they are destined for violence, and rely on faith, meditation, and friendship to live peaceful lives.

This is about what you would get to hear in an combined [insert race] Behavioral Biology and Psychology lecture. If they wove it into lore-stories to show how rich [insert race] and culture really is it would have worked.

Instead they are telling in so many words how [insert race] isn't any different to any other race and that just belonging to that race doesn't necessarily follow that all are superstitious halfwits believing in a blood curse or being bloodthirsty murdering monsters. They are a community of individuals sharing race, culture and region, yet they are no collective but diverse individuals with many wonderful talents ... Some are murderous monsters, superstitious halfwits believing in a blood-curse driving them to kill half of [insert race] kind. Which shouldn't be an excuse for the atrocious deeds because a forward thinking society knows that this is just that individual.The majority however consists of peace-loving, flower-picking members who love to dance in the meadows with Drow and Svirfneblin, who in reality are their bestest friends and are well versed in culture, cotoure, all things wordly and divine. In short a race other races just can't but admire!

Other races just can't see how all Orcs and Half-orcs are just the same as members of [insert race]. There is no place in a forward thinking society to slander them ... For in fact, once they get to know their true story, instead of relying what they had learned about them from newspapers and crystal-ball broadcasting series: TRUE ORC CRIMES

Orc invasion of village, everything burned down, 50 died, 2 survivors victim of abduction, one escapee with future of becoming orc slayer.

They will find that dacing with [insert race] in a meadow on a warm summer evening, discussing their beliefs, fears, daily struggles, exchanging their knowledge, and sharing their wisdom, the world will turn into a society of equals in which neither race nor culture matters. Rainbows will bloom, and all will live in a flower-power community like one hasn't seen since Sockentwood - A.D. 859 and chant: WE ARE GOOD, WE ARE EQUAL, WE ARE WISE, WE ARE ...

Jokes aside ... WotC designers were going out of their way to introduce real-life concepts to the game without attempting to hide it. They are forcing this agenda on players and DM. Why? Because vocal minorities not even playing a game, certainly not D&D, starts causing a ruckus until the company falters and starts introducing changes that no one really wanted or asked for.

In short: What they were doing isn't the problem and would even be welcomed. It's just that they did a p**s-poor job that's off-putting to many a player and DM. They are ignoring such changes, and - if nothing else helps, they either homebrew or turn to older source material where all that hasn't been an issue.

It's nothing new, really - it's basically the "satanic" anit-D&D panic all over again, when they removed all the mentions of "devils" and made sure to put nothing demonic on the covers and overall neuter the game's image. It's no coincidence either that this is happening now when D&D is experiencing something of a resurgance. It seems it hasn't been this popular in years, if not decades. It's certainly more prominent in media and mass conciousness than it has been in my lifetime. So they come to care less about core fandom and more about making a product shiny and attractive to potential new players.

It's a lot like what happened to GOG after they rebranded and re-focused around Galaxy, only D&D and WotC is much bigger, co even more "marketing minded".