D&D General Why a PETITION: Stop Hasbro's hurtful content is a Bad Idea

[Clint_L]

What has shifted is that works, such as this one, are increasingly being challenged from the political left. In Canada and America, most challenges have always come from the conservative right, particularly the Christian conservative right. Freedom of expression used to be a pillar of liberal ideology, but that is less so these days. As educators, we now get a lot of pressure from both sides. We feel like we are walking on eggshells. I empathize with WotC's predicament.

 

[haakon1]

It's not getting cancelled, the original poster just wanted more effort and explanation put into explaining and educating people on why this is wrong. I find the whole "stop selling pre OneD&D stuff" to be looking for a reason to fear actually looking at their back catalog. Has Wizards been quick to remove old content like this before? Given that no one is asking for removal, why would that be the solution now? I feel like people are looking for reasons not to entertain this rather than engage with what is actually being asked.

This is asking WotC to waste money and steer into controversy.

GAZ10 has somewhere between 2501-5000 total sales in 9 years. In other words, it’s a product that brings in maybe 300 sales & $1200 in profit per year, probably less since gaming sales tend down over time.

The demand is that they invest in this product and give it a high profile while apologizing for something done 2 corporate owners ago - for a product which they don’t care about, accrues to nothing else in their product road map, makes no serious money, and is causing reputational harm.

Doing so wouldn’t be a logical business decision - all pain, negative gain.

Much more business reasonable to simply stop selling it.

And if you read what I wrote, you’d see my concern is the SECOND witch-hunt. I don’t care about GAZ10. But is GAZ10 really, really the only objectionable product? At some point, an on-going petition and drop it process may well lead to a demand for a thorough review of everything old - which would logically led to mass dropping of old products, rather than investing in them to “review” and dealing with ongoing noise. Cut bait is logically what a business would do.

About calls to ban 5e stuff some day - oh yeah, it will probably happen. D&D has always been controversial.

I‘m trying to respond to your actual questions to my post, though I understand EnWorld conversations often devolve into yelling. I won’t reply to whatever you post back - free shot! - and I’m calling this done.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Each or our opinions is just that, but to share where I stand:

I am 100% in favor of new content being carefully checked for problematic content. For example, I am all for rewriting orcs to not use the imagery and language that has, for centuries, been used to rationalize subjugation of certain people. I am all for getting rid of racial ASIs (although that's not entirely altruistic...I also think they are weak game design).

And I would extend that to re-releases of old content, when it is updated.

But old content is...old content. With the caveat that I'm not a member of the real life demographic groups supposedly hurt by this, I see banning old content as going too far. And not because it's necessarily "censorship". I just find the intellectual justification weak. The possible benefit...which seems to me to be rather small...is outweighed by the cost of inflaming culture wars, and giving the right ammunition for saying, "See? They're nuts!"

That's on top of the simple economics of re-writing a bunch of stuff that almost nobody buys.

 

[haakon1]

I question why WotC wants to republish this material, but not their right to do so.

I assume because there’s some small profit in mass republishing old stuff. A one-time expense to digitize and ongoing revenue & profit with no additional costs - 3rd parties just send you a check. Take several hundred products * maybe ~$1000 each/year, and it’s an easy though tiny profit center.

Also, after the edition wars, it keeps everyone in the really, really big tent of every variant of D&D. People who like mostly older stuff (like me) are still in their “addressable market”, and people entering in 5e can go buy past stuff from WotC if they’re curious and want to try something different.

Oh, and it also may help protect copyright in disputes with new TSR. I dunno.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I assume because there’s some small profit in mass republishing old stuff. A one-time expense to digitize and ongoing revenue & profit with no additional costs - 3rd parties just send you a check. Take several hundred products * maybe ~$1000 each/year, and it’s an easy though tiny profit center.

Also, after the edition wars, it keeps everyone in the really, really big tent or every variant of D&D. People who like mostly older stuff (like me) are still in their “addressable market”, and people entering in 5e can go buy past stuff from WotC if they’re curious and want to try something different.

Oh, and it also may help protect copyright in disputes with new TSR. I dunno.

No, it's because they are EVIL. C'mon, get with the program. Don't you read Twitter?

 

[Umbran]

No, it's because they are EVIL. C'mon, get with the program. Don't you read Twitter?

The snark is not helpful. Please approach the thread with less of it. Thanks.

 

[LordEntrails]

I'd like to see Mystara opened up on the DMs Guild so that fans can produce an updated version of GAZ10 which eliminates the problem content.

Oh that would be such a cluster. Sure, it could be done well, but odds are that many of the negative aspects of things like Orcs of Thar would (unintentionally) be brought into content on the DMsG. Even if the "moderation" was done by the community, it would still mean that it would open up significant risk for WotC. "WotC allows X to be sold under their name onteh DMsG, they must do Y!"
IMO it would be a poor business decision to open Mystara up for publication on the Guild. The profit for doing so would never be outweighed by the risk in doing so.

That's not specific, though, and @The Sigil 's list don't seem like incredible deal-breakers. Like, again, I think people should individually address the list because most of these objections make no sense to what is actually being proposed.

What list? ~45 pages is not a list, it is a thesis. I'm not willing to read a thesis and rely on the intelligent comments from the few who have done so.

Given that no one is asking for removal, why would that be the solution now?

Because that would be a very likely business decision. @haakon1 and others have given the reason that such would be a logical business decision, even when its is not what is being asked for.

The petition literally calls for none of that, please actually read it.

No. Get @Dungeonosophy to put it in a concise one page petition and I will read it. But this is simple not something I support enough to read a ~45 page thesis.

Again, read the list.

What list? There is no list. There is a thesis.

Is there proof that it's going to suddenly shut down all old sales? Do we know that, or are you just scaremongering?

Scaremongering is a strong and inappropriate claim. Not what was being stated and not productive to the discussion to use such language.

they could probably get more significant good-will than continuing to collect a small amount of profits on a racist book.

How much would that good will be worth? Would it be worth the risk they would be placing themselves in?

There are ethical and theoretical concepts. And then there are business realities. The two often do not result in the same decisions.

 

[Faolyn]

It has BECMI racial classes for kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, gnolls, ogres, trolls. It has two racial humanoid spellcaster classes.

A full skill rule set for BECMI.

It has a whole wargame with counters.

A neat table of random minor horde names (straight, not disparaging cultural caricatures).

Some decent fantasy cultural name lists.

Defective weapon, oversized weapons, and mismatched piecemeal armor rules.

It has the fantastic Gazetteer hex maps and maps for the region.

Some people really enjoy parts of the setting straight.

Thar is a decently big deal in the Mystara setting with a lot of war and raiding threat connections to Darokin, Glantri, Ethengar, and Rockhome (even without sharing a direct border, there are mountains technically part of Darokin in between).

A 36th level orc war leader is pretty cool.

There is a setting storyline involving a couple immortals and their plots with multiple populations.

So very little of the lore and only a bit of the crunch, some of which has been reprinted elsewhere, then.

 

[Zardnaar]

What has shifted is that works, such as this one, are increasingly being challenged from the political left. In Canada and America, most challenges have always come from the conservative right, particularly the Christian conservative right. Freedom of expression used to be a pillar of liberal ideology, but that is less so these days. As educators, we now get a lot of pressure from both sides. We feel like we are walking on eggshells. I empathize with WotC's predicament.

Think we're about 20-30 years ahead and what's happening here the kids are kinda shutting down and not communicating. May also be a side effect of cell phones etc.

Parents are kinda frustrated as well as there's less focus in things pre 1999 like standardized tests and the basics.

And the richer schools offer international tests vs normal schools that can't.

My nephew who's just turned 9 can't do a few tings we could.

 

[haakon1]

One thing that might help is user reviews.

On DriveThruRPG, GAZ10 has an overall rating of 4.5 and only 3 reviews, all short, all 5-stars, none mentioning the issues raised in the petition.

Folks who think it’s bad content could write a review and posting it on PDF sites, where potential buyers would see their objections to the content. A warning to readers of what they find to be offensive content seems like it would help.

Basically, outsourcing content review to concerned gamers, posted through reviews & warnings, could allow WotC to keep old stuff available and alert potential buyers to beware.