Okay I'm done being cross and now I just want to start providing some actual affirmative action you can take in your games that will start making things less shit. Please add your own.

My main d20-fork experience is Pathfinder but you can apply this to many, many games.

Thread/

1. Don't use the word race to describe types of fantasy humanoid. Change your character sheet to use something more affirming that defines people beyond their body type. Background, Heritage, Culture. All fine. I also like Metatype if body is important.

2. Humanoid sub-types? Skeevy AF, drop that. We're not doing that anymore. They don't exist. Rewrite spells and abilities that target these. Favoured Enemy just can't be Humanoid, so drop that. It won't unbalance the game.

3. Most heritages give you two +2s to stats and one -2. Don't do the -2, that's gross. Have the player choose which of the +2 bonuses they want. Balance any other disbenefits in the same way.

4. Disassociate the heritages in your world from the flavour text in the setting guides. Orcs don't have to be martial. Elves don't have to be aloof. They can be literally anything and it makes it much more compelling.

5. Forget favoured classes for heritages, please. Please please please don't do this at your table. Nobody is better or worse at their job because of their background. Burn that with fire.

6. If you have the choice when you buy your supplements and modules (hint: you always do), support PoC and other marginalised folx, not the majority voice. I guarantee you their takes will be better and more nuanced.

7. You don't need to defend X thing in Y game because it's like the original source material. Society changes. Perpetuating stereotypes is not good. Break the mold and structure new lore. Your game will be 1000x better for it.

8. You also don't need to defend the source material. Lovecraft was a notable racist. Tolkien was not the best person. Rowling is a TERF. Gygax, oh gee. It doesn't mean we can't love some of what they produced. It means we reinterpret it as times change. It means we do better.

9. Character voices

Be /very/ careful about accents and dialects. Doubly so if you're borrowing outside of your own heritage.

You don't need to do character voices at all. Focus your effort on other verbal mannerisms. Curse words, interjections, placeholders - more interesting.

10. Real world analogies.

Outside of your own experience or knowledge, be extremely careful. If you borrow from real cultures, accentuate the positives, never the negatives. If you need negative cultures, amplify the worst parts of your own. Critique capitalism, bigotry, hatred.