Woke Tacos Salted With the Tears of Would-Be Culture Warriors

Humorless would-be culture warriors want us to be mad about tacos and sushi in Dungeons & Dragons. A recent Twitter post castigated the official artwork for the spell “Heroes’ Feast” (illustrated by Raluca Marinescu), specifically pointing out the inclusion of hard-shelled tacos and sushi on the table among a mix of “traditional” fantasy food such as roast meat and cheeses, along with more modern cheeseburgers and instant noodles. Ignoring the uncomfortable racism implied in the post (something that needs to be called out given that Republicans have turned to lying about the eating habits of immigrants in an attempt to distract from the word salad ramblings of their quickly declining tinpot dictator), it was almost pathetic to see that anyone would react to seeing a hard-shell taco in a D&D book with anything more than a smirk. Sadly, almost anything will trigger a certain online contingent of D&D fans, but this was perhaps the most absurd complaint yet—pretending that the inclusion of Tex-Mex cuisine somehow compromised the medieval accuracy of a game that also features robots, pistols, skyships, and of course… sprawling dungeons and dragons.  

It was the latest in a series of online gnashing and wailing about the new 2024 Player’s Handbook, focused mainly on art direction that some find to be too inclusive and friendly for a combat-focused fantasy RPG. While some criticism of the new D&D artwork (such as Rascal co-founder Chase Carter’s take on “characters without character”) certainly comes from a place of good faith, other bad actors seem to desperately want to bring the culture wars to Dungeons & Dragons and keep using the art to do it. Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier to whine about friendly orcs or a paladin munching a taco than it is to try to examine the rules themselves for signs of “wokeness.”