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)

 

[dalisprime]

The overall consensus is that OA is a pastiche of East Asian cultures. The takes on what that means vary from outrage to a shrug.
The best way forward would be to create new Asian/Mezoamerican/Arabic-Persian inspired settings (or rewrite Kara Tur, Maztica and Zakhara) that account for the intricacies of the cultures that stem from those regions. One important thing to remember is that Ed Greenwood never intended for the Realms to reflect real life cultures, it was other authors that inserted those elements. This opens another option: rewrite those regions so they don't resemble the cultures that take issue with them. This is probably the most difficult and radical approach but it would certainly be true to Ed's original vision of the world.
No matter what they do with legacy material, someone will be outraged so there's no winners there.

As for gith'yanki and gith'zerai - owing to their skin colour and the descriptions of the two races, one could easily draw a parallel to China and Tibet if one really wanted.

 

[Haldrik]

It seems to me that no matter what, if every nonhuman is just a "human in a costume", be they elf, dwarf, halfling, gnome, or orc, the most "fair" way to solve this problem is to remove ALL sentient nonhuman PC races as player options, if not from the game itself.

Every humanoid is potentially a player character.

Especially the orc is a playable character, because the half-orc is a core option, and family members that are orcs are part of the characters identity. Drow are a popular core option. In our generation, goblin and kobold are also popular player characters.

In other words, every humanoid requires the designer to be sensitive to reallife reception, when it comes to using reallife tropes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

When that one person suffered third degree burns requiring skin grafts?

When discovery showed that McDonald's required franchises to serve coffee at 180-190F, and coffee at 180F will produce 3rd degree burns on skin in 12 to 15 seconds, and 190F at three seconds?

When documents obtained for the trail showed that the company had received more than 700 reports of people burned by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000?

When their quality control manager testified that these settlements were not sufficient to make McD's change their practices?

So, basically, when that one person in the lawsuit was proven to merely be a signifier for hundreds before her who had also been injured, with the company doing nothing?

Yes, interesting to consider the parallels....

(cite - Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants - Wikipedia which matches many other sources, basically showing there was nothing at all frivolous about the suit, if you care about the pain of people...)

Actually heard a talk by the attorney that handled the case a few years ago. If you want someone to blame, look no further than McDonalds.

Given the history of similar cases, the original strategy was to sue and settle quickly. But because of a 10 year history of settling similar lawsuits, McD‘s was in no mood to do so, and said no, so discovery continued.

As the case progressed, more information was revealed, and the plaintiff repeatedly tried to settle. Each time, the proposed settlement amount rose because the fact pattern of wrongdoing was clear, meaning the value of the case kept climbing. Each time, McDonalds refused the settlement offers, choosing this case as their hill to die on.

So they did.

Sometimes, when corporations get sued, they REALLY DID do something wrong.

 

[reelo]

Every humanoid is potentially a player character.

Especially the orc is a playable character, because the half-orc is a core option, and family members that are orcs are part of the characters identity. Drow are a popular core option. In our generation, goblin and kobold are also popular player characters.

In other words, every humanoid requires the designer to be sensitive to reallife reception, when it comes to using reallife tropes.

Yet they'll all just be "humans in costumes". The point still stands.

 

[Haldrik]

Yet they'll all just be "humans in costumes". The point still stands.

That is why all humanoids should be designed as a playable character, whether a particular setting makes use of them or not.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Because it's the worst mod on the site. ^_^

Not clever, not cute. Dangerously close to an edge that can get you booted. If you want to comment on moderation, take it to PM.

 

[dalisprime]

Every humanoid is potentially a player character.

Especially the orc is a playable character, because the half-orc is a core option, and family members that are orcs are part of the characters identity. Drow are a popular core option. In our generation, goblin and kobold are also popular player characters.

In other words, every humanoid requires the designer to be sensitive to reallife reception, when it comes to using reallife tropes.

There's some cognitive dissonance at work here. Race a is portrayed as monstrous so players have no qualms about exercising their heroism by killing its members.
Someone then decides - hey wouldn't it be cool to play a member of the race but I'll be an outcast going against the trope. This then gets traction to the point of race getting popularity amongst the players.
We then enter the stage where people seemingly forget that monstrous race wasn't meant to be a player option and claim it problematic on grounds of being portrayed as monstrous because they have made the outcast so mainstream as to be a representative of the average member of said race.

This happened with the drow (thanks to Drizzt). This happened with goblins, orcs and kobolds. They literally humanised the races that were never intended to be represented as humanlike and now take issue with original portrayal.

Similar problem with racial ability adjustments - the point raised now is that racial ASIs are irrelevant because everyone maxes out at 20 regardless of race due to levels, seemingly forgetting that this entire concept stems from a time where your ability scores at level 20 were the same as they were at level 1 short of very potent magic, so a race described as more stout, dextrous, or ingeniuos actually meant something.
Saying that halfling being described as weaker than half orc is racist seems seriously disingenuous to me.
Would anyone argue that describing a tiger as stronger but slower than a cheetah is somehow incorrect? They're both felines similar to how halfling and half orc are humanoid. Is anyone complaining when chimpanzees aren't ascribed the same intelligence as humans - both being primates?
Humans are equal regardless of gender and skin colour. Extending the parallels to other races reads to me as being upset over personal choice of identifying with something you're not meant to identify with.

 

[Haldrik]

There's some cognitive dissonance at work here. Race a is portrayed as monstrous so players have no qualms about exercising their heroism by killing its members.
Someone then decides - hey wouldn't it be cool to play a member of the race but I'll be an outcast going against the trope. This then gets traction to the point of race getting popularity amongst the players.
We then enter the stage where people seemingly forget that monstrous race wasn't meant to be a player option and claim it problematic on grounds of being portrayed as monstrous because they have made the outcast so mainstream as to be a representative of the average member of said race.

This happened with the drow (thanks to Drizzt). This happened with goblins, orcs and kobolds. They literally humanised the races that were never intended to be represented as humanlike and now take issue with original portrayal.

I understand that concern. At least one forumer explained how during the Satanic Panic, there was heightened fear about children and teens playing an amoral game. So, for gamers in these subcultures, it became very important to have clear separation between Good versus Evil. Thus they were essentially "slaying demons", making the game more tolerable to those subcultures. Nevertheless, to identify certain reallife identity tropes as demonic is problematic. It literally demonizes reallife people who exhibit these tropes.

Keep the "monsters" less human. Slay dragons. Even tho some dragons are good and some dragons are evil, and some dragons are player characters, at least they have some distance away from reallife identity groups. At least they dont look human.



It is possible for a human-looking monster to lack freewill. But it is tricky to describe them, because they often have reallife human tropes. Consider a fey creature. I treat them as mirroring whatever nearby ingame human culture. At the same time, each one is a dreamlike personification of a force of nature. So a particular fey has as much freewill as a dangerous waterful does. Or a blossoming flower. Or a summer breeze. Or a sunbeam. And I describe such a motif in various ways during an encounter. I try to avoid accidental racism or sexism.

[edit]

On second thought, in the future, I might make all human-looking monsters (fey, undead, celestial, fiend) mirror whatever the players play. So if one player plays a gnome, an undead is likely to be a gnome. And so on.

 

[dalisprime]

I understand that concern. At least one forumer explained how during the Satanic Panic, there was heightened fear about children and teens playing an amoral game. So, for gamers in these subcultures, it became very important to have clear separation between Good versus Evil. Thus they were essentially "slaying demons", make the game more tolerable to those subcultures. Nevertheless, to identify certain reallife identity tropes as demonic is problematic. It literally demonizes reallife people who exhibit these tropes.

Keep the "monsters" less human. Slay dragons. Even tho some dragons are good and some dragons are evil, and some dragons are player characters, at least they have some distance away from reallife identity groups. At least they dont look human.

Neither do kobolds. They started off as doglike in appearance then moved to their modern lizard/dragonlike appearance. The way a race looks seems to play no role at all. Someone will associate with it despite all intentions and then act upset over its portrayal.

 

[Haldrik]

Neither do kobolds. They started off as doglike in appearance then moved to their modern lizard/dragonlike appearance. The way a race looks seems to play no role at all. Someone will associate with it despite all intentions and then act upset over its portrayal.

I agree kobolds are less human looking, so safer to describe. Same goes for dragonborn.

But at the same time, many players seem to love the kobolds, and want to play them. So they pretty much have to be designed as a player character anyway.