Dwarves aren't cool anymore

[Dr.Samurai]

Does there need to be absolutely no lore for people to make their own? No. Do the companies making these games want to appeal to as many people as possible, and in the process have disproportionately high fears of saying too much and alienating some of their potential buyers? Absolutely. Out of the choices between the company trying to sell something and the people who don't want to make their own worlds who do you think is dictating the "official" lore?

Some vocal minority that probably is not buying as many books as anyone thinks.

And honestly as much as I dislike moving toward generic copy-paste lore for all settings I have just as much issue with how much people crusade over "this is what the monsters should really be." Most of those arguments are rooted purely in some obsession with older editions of D&D as an indisputable source while covering their ears and pretending not to see or hear how much of their precious D&D's content is based in hilariously bad understandings of the things it's based on. You've got Orcs and Goblins as separate and people will fight to defend that separation. You've got "Fey" that have absolutely nothing to do with that label and come from entirely different mythological roots only to find that there's plenty of other things from the same mythologies that are completely different creature types. You've got monsters and heroic creatures from so many different cultures crammed together in a great big mess with little to no regard for how they're portrayed until someone hires a sensitivity writer and scrubs half the words from their description and starts a different version of this same fight. Oddly all of that is perfectly fine with people but "well they made my easy bad guys less blatantly evil" is what pushes it too far and counts as an attack against our sensibilities.

I started in 3.0 so it's not attachment to early D&D.

It's the fact that there is nothing wrong with the game, and it doesn't need this kind of adjustment. That's an opinion, of course, but it's a valid opinion that doesn't require you to caricature it as something else. I enjoy the game very much, and I'd prefer that it not be changed because of bad ideas, and especially so if the changes are not good changes. I don't want to see this influence on the game, nor watch the game morph into something boring and bland. It's clear as day, to me at least, that the justification for these changes is incredibly thin. And since they change something that people have been playing with for decades, it's not unreasonable to object and want better justification or no change at all.

I've given reasons, including the utility of a "Mordor" and evil cultures, the influence of evil deities, the fact that these dark traits are also traits of humanity that can be explored in these creatures. I've objected to the other side by noting that there have always been exceptions to these cultures, which leaves room for the "not all orcs" consideration, that this type of thinking can lead to ANY lore changing at any time (including Eberron, where orcs are still "primal" and dark elves worship animal spirits, and goblins are basically second class citizens across the Five Nations, etc.). There are other objections of course, to the actual ideology informing these decisions, but we can't discuss those here.

"Well you can just make your own because I have/had it the way I like it" works both ways, in fact it works in all directions at all times, it's not an argument it's just a squabble over who gets to be smug about having the official version in their favor and who has to do some legwork fleshing out what they want.

I don't agree with this at all actually. It smacks of entitlement to think that you can take a game that has been played for decades, and start making these types of changes to it and expect that no one will complain or if that they complain you're just as justified in your actions as they are. That's very convenient thinking for the person making the changes.

I'm kind of detached from the "But WOTC says!" part of the debate because I always made my own settings anyway and because I viewed the thread as more system agnostic. How can dwarfs be more interesting (not just in D&D 5e)? How/Can "Always Evil" (for certain definitions of always) races be justified in a game setting? WOTC is in the business of selling as many books as they can to make stockholders happy; I'm not about to view them as an absolute authority on anything, though some people are far more attached to them. And as for "Well, no one will stop you from making your own..." I mean, duh?

Makes sense.

One way to "justify" it for those that need it could be something like a deity like Gruumsh gathering followers of all kinds. Gruumsh happens to be an orc, or presents as an orc, but many creatures gather to his banner of conquest and might makes right. So you can have a "coalition" of all types of creatures following an evil deity. I mean... I think this is easy enough to do with the previous lore but just thinking aloud here.