WotC Older D&D Books on DMs Guild Now Have A Disclaimer

If you go to any of the older WotC products on the Dungeon Master's Guild, they now have a new disclaimer very similar to that currently found at the start of Looney Tunes cartoons.

We recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website, does not reflect the values of the Dungeon & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

The wording is very similar to that found at the start of Looney Tunes cartoons.

Edit: Wizards has put out a statement on Twitter (click through to the full thread)

 

[Sadras]

The way goblins are typically depicted is reminiscent of antisemitic caricature. I strongly suspect that is why people dislike it.

These threads are becoming an exchange of poisonous perceptions.

 

[ccs]

Which they applied to all of the product. So yes, they're effectively calling every single thing created before 5th edition "Wrong". The key word would only work if it was applied to material which had some depiction of something that had a clear problem, like early Looney Toons, where almost no one would even try to argue that it wasn't clearly a problem.

They chose to apply it to everything, and that insinuates that all of it is wrong. To put it another way, you won't find a warning label "Product may contain nuts" in food that doesn't contain nuts, nor will you find a warning label about electrocution hazard on a product that doesn't use electricity. Warning labels aren't applied to things that don't have what the label is warning you about.

I think the key word you're overlooking in that label is may.
And that may? In this it's dependent upon how you see something. It MAY be there for you. While not being there for the next person.
So if you open the book & it's there for you? Accept their apology. Just don't complain that you weren't warned it might be in there.

And this is NOT like the warning label concerning nuts.
Eating nuts might actually KILL someone. Thinking that an orc is meant to represent some RL minority? No matter how offended you are? You'll survive. Not liking that a bunch of white dudes in America wrote a book about fantasy Oriental land 35/19 years ago? Guess what? You'll survive.
Be one of those people deathly allergic to nuts & eat the wrong thing? You won't have to concern yourself with wether or not some D&D book is racist.

 

[cbwjm]

Hasbro is on a roll. They just announced that they are cooperating to ban a bunch of racist terms from competitive Scrabble play. Why that's taken until now I have no idea, but at least it's happening.

People play scramble competitively?!

 

[Alzrius]

Yeah, kind of a red flag.

Are you kidding? The ur-priest prestige class was great for min-maxing! It had a custom spell progression that got you up to 9th-level spells in only ten levels!

...or was that the sort of red flag you meant?

 

[MGibster]

I apologize for any confusion. I am not trying to force a moral view onto others. I am constantly learning with every interaction.

You've been perfectly polite and don't need to apologize for anything as I wasn't upset in the least. I like to think I have a sense of humor and sometimes I reply accordingly. In fact, I apologize for giving you the impression that I was in any way upset with you as it was not intended.

 

[Mortaz]

I go 30+ years of playing D&D and never once did it occur to me that orcs were black people and goblins and dwarves were jewish.....well I guess that's over now....thanks a lot internet!

 

[cbwjm]

I go 30+ years of playing D&D and never once did it occur to me that orcs were black people and goblins and dwarves were jewish.....well I guess that's over now....thanks a lot internet!

I'm the same, if it wasn't for spending time on this forum and Reddit, I'd probably still be blissfully unaware.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I go 30+ years of playing D&D and never once did it occur to me that orcs were black people and goblins and dwarves were jewish.....well I guess that's over now....thanks a lot internet!

This is a great example of why systemic racism is so difficult to deal with. Most of us within the system are blind to it, but that doesn't mean the racism doesn't exist.

Last summer I reorganized my classroom library (I teach 3rd Grade), and I put all the chapter books on one shelf, organized by series. Suddenly I realized that all the books were about white kids.

Now I could just shrug and say, "Oh well, no one is actively trying to only have books about white kids." I mean, none of those authors were being purposefully exclusive, and the publisher wasn't, and I wasn't.

But that's not enough.

System racism is powerful because often we don't see it until it's pointed out to us by someone it harms. And then it makes us feel uncomfortable because we realize we have been participating in that system, even if we don't think of ourselves as racist.

WotC is doing the right thing by putting these disclaimers on their work. It can be uncomfortable, but I believe that the discomfort will lead to people re-examining this game we love and seek out ways to make it even better.

(PS: I spent the last year working with my school's librarian to find chapter book series for 3rd Graders with more diverse protagonists. It's been a journey!)

 

[BookTenTiger]

Hiya!

What will be really interesting...is to see this all happen again in a couple years, when new terms/descriptions become "problematic to todays society" and we go through all this again.

If there is one thing that never changes...someone, somewhere, will always find something to be offended about....and force others to be offended as well.

I think you may be ignoring that this process of reflecting on our media, deciding what is appropriate and should be celebrated, and what is out-dated or harmful, and what to do about it, is something that has been going on for a long time and will continue happening.

What's occuring now, though, is that a series of horrific, racist incidents in the real world are causing WotC to take a harder look than usual and make a more opaque statement about what kinds of narratives they want to support through the medium of D&D.

This process should happen frequently. It will happen again in a few years, and again after that, and it will still be happening when our great great great grandkids are playing D&D on Mars.

shrug

I guess I'll just keep on playing my "problematic editions" with "racial prejudices" and "colonial colonization undertones" and let others label me with whatever naughty-bad-wrong-word they want. No skin off my teeth. I'm still having a blast creating stuff for me and my groups "problematic and wrong" fantasy games.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

When I was a kid, we played a game in which we threw a ball into the air, and then everyone would tackle whoever caught it.

This game had a homophobic name, which I won't type here. I can't imagine being a child or adult who is gay and hearing kids play a game with a homophobic name. I am sure someone in that situation would not feel safe, nevertheless included.

Could my kids play this game today? Yes, of course! But you better believe I would never let anyone use the original title! We would change the parts of the game that exclude or harm others based on identity.

I'm glad you have a way of playing you enjoy. Obviously whatever WotC chooses to do won't harm you in any way. But can you see how these changes will help other players feel more included?

 

[TheSword]

... and Kwan is not amused:
The disclaimer isn't even visible on a full-screen web page.
"Thanks for giving us money! If you scroll all the way down, you'll see that we feel real bad about it."

Now that I think about it, 40k Orcs being compared to fungi is even worse than the old 'Jewish parasite' notion.

There is a subtle difference but 40k orcs are not compared to funghi... they are funghi. They are literally a fungal based organism. It explains why their population explodes without them being sexual in any way. Secondly what helps to confound the Tolkien stereotype is that they are bright green and re-imagined as Brit-style foot ball hooligans. This is a traditional white thuggish stereotype (certainly in Britain) and helps to confound associations with other stereotypes. I’m not sure this was intentional but nevertheless it works.