D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Voadam]

are any monsters not creepy mashup things? maybe oozes?

There are a lot of mashup monsters.

Spider and Eel = Neogi. Drow and Giant Spider = Drider. Person and Bull = Minotaur.

Lots of monsters though are also just normal things with a fantastic aspect that are not mashups.

An ant, but giant! A wolf with a cone of cold breath weapon! Fire but vaguely man-shaped and living! A person but living dead!

Also there are lots of normal animal and people monsters.

Lions! And Tigers! And Bears! And Warlocks!

 

[Gradine]

And I personally detest the idea of "sensitivity distributors" for a variety of reasons, but for similar reasons why I don't like censorship in general

What I am proposing and censorship are two very different things. Judicious access to a privately owned (if public-facing) platform/marketplace is both practical and good.

 

[Cadence]

Also there are lots of normal animal and people monsters.

It feels like people make the worst monsters.

 

[squibbles]

@Dungeonosophy made the following suggestions, for anyone interested. It took me a while to find them, so I imagine others jumping in at this late stage might also want to know.

[...] Do I have a specific suggestion for how WotC/Hasbro could make amends?

1) Well, ideally each legacy product which has major "ethnic, racial, or gender prejudice" would be looked at by a team of professional cultural consultants.

2) And their findings would be published in a DRAGON+ article. Where WotC would apologize for specific portrayals.

3) It would be such a healing gesture to bring in the original authors (in this case, Bruce Heard), and editors and artists, and let them apologize on DRAGON+, and say some really beautiful, conciliatory words which are vetted by the cultural amends team. Like R.A. Salvatore's recent words on problematic aspects of the drow, which I think was a beautiful gesture.

4) The DRAGON+ article would then be forever linked to the DriveThruRPG product page. It would be a truly healing gesture.

[...]

5) Besides educating folks through the amendatory DRAGON+ articles, I'd also suggest that a large portion of proceeds of problematic legacy PDFs be perpetually donated to an appropriate charity. In the case of GAZ10, I'd personally suggest the Lakota Waldorf School...they could use the money. Yet I'm sure there are plenty of worthy Indigenous American and East Asian charities which WotC could identify, even in the Renton-Seattle area. However, the more specific the better. For example, GAZ10 contains distasteful content specifically related to the Vodun (Voodoo), Lakota (Teton Sioux), Nakota (Assiniboine/Stoney), Kanienʼkehá꞉ka (Mohawk), Apsáalooke (Crow), Mongolian, Tibetan, Chinese, and Bhutanese cultures, and perhaps others. It would not be hard for WotC's cultural amends team to do some web research and find a charity related to each of those cultures. And sort of divvy up the PDF "amends royalties" based on approximately how many distasteful jabs each culture received. (For example, there are only three sentences which buffoonishly refer to Vodun spirituality, but many paragraphs which refer to "Red Orcs.")

I maintain that the Legacy Disclaimer, added by the publisher/estate, is all the action that needs to be taken. I don't want the works to be banned, censored, discontinued, or burned as some have suggested...and I certainly don't want the whole topic to be ignored or dismissed, as others have suggested.

I think they could reasonably adopt some of the suggestions above. Maybe by just noting the specific criticisms that are made about each product and, if the past writers are so inclined, publishing their apologies and linking to them. Hiring a standing staff of cultural consultants to comb all of D&D's back catalogue for objectionable content sounds like a bridge too far, though.

I don't demand a solution at all. I'm happy to say "Ya, this material is offensive and racist AND it's a great work of weird fiction and has inspired a ton of other authors and creators". That is my solution.

That seems like it's all that's being asked of posters on these boards, as far as I can tell (excepting that there is some disagreement in taste about what is regarded as 'great'), expectations for action apply principally to WotC.

Please correct me, anyone in the thread who strongly disagrees about that.

[...] I think the reason there is no clear better solution is that we're talking about stuff that has to be worked out of our system over the long-haul.

EDIT: a bit more. I mean, we're talking about centuries, if not millennia, of enculturation. I would also suggest that human culture is a work in progress, and there's no singular right way to do it. I'm always leery of people who say "This is the right way, and if don't agree, you're bad!"

We, collectively and individually, are in a process - we're trying to figure things out. While we'd all like to get to wherever we imagine we should be, whatever our own view of a more beautiful and kind society is, as quickly as possible, it takes time. And sometimes pushing too hard, sets us back even further, so I think the key question is, "are we, overall, moving forward?" And by "forward," I mean towards a kinder, more inclusive way of being, but also one that honors the freedom and sovereignty of the individual. A tricky business!

And I'd suggest that even when we get "there," we'll discover new problems!

I don't subscribe to the view that history is teleological (i.e. has progress). Things don't necessarily get better for human flourishing with the passage of time, even if human flourishing is a broadly agreed upon goal. But I agree that (except in drastic--and usually bad--circumstances) sweeping cultural change is something that only happens "over the long-haul" and that happily, in most of the world, long run cultural trends are generally positive.

---edit---

good god this thread goes through tangents quickly, feels like when I started writing this post to reply to the middle of page 86 it was about something completely different.

 

[Zardnaar]

What I am proposing and censorship are two very different things. Judicious access to a privately owned (if public-facing) platform/marketplace is both practical and good.

Sort of. Problem is if you restict access for some eg put it in a museum/university it breeds resentment.

Things need to be available to everyone or not at all (eg kiddie porn) imho.

Mein Kampf for example last time I saw it was in the university library but I can buy a copy if I really want to (I don't).

Essentially it's saying "you're to stupid to read this". Breeds resentment and feeds into the out of touch academic narrative.

 

[Justice and Rule]

All you're really saying is that you agree with one side and not the other - that you find one view substantive, but the other not.

I mean, you basically stated it yourself: a lot of the resistance to these changes are largely people feeling like they are being called "racist" for liking it. Like, I've already said this in numerous threads before.

I see problems on both sides of the issue, but I don't want to belabor that. And perhaps the largest problem is the view that there are "two sides" rather than a vast diversity of possible perspectives existing on a spectrum.

There's much more spectrum on the side of changing things because you can have many solutions, while a side resisting only really has one: don't. I can have individual disagreements about what change needs to occur, but ultimately I just don't see those disagreements as being the same as the overall argument about whether to have change in the first place.

Holding true to one's values is one thing, but expecting everyone to share them is quite another. And what I find most concerning, is assuming that those who don't share one's own values are in the same group as the "other side." Like there are only two choices, two camps. It is very tribal, but that's par for the course these days (in the world).

I'll be honest, I find using the phrase "both sides" in other topics (particularly politics) to generally not be used honestly and be more about someone who is embarrassed by their views and wanting them to discredit the other side because of it. I'm not going to delve into that because that will be way more political than that, but it's why I generally react to people who use it with an instinctive eye roll.

 

[Thomas Shey]

are any monsters not creepy mashup things? maybe oozes?

Both "creepy" and "alien" were the important elements. There are monsters that aren't creepy; arguably a lot of dragons land there, they're just dangerous. And there are plenty that aren't "alien" in the sense being used here, they're native to the same world the PCs come from, and sometimes even a natural part of the normal forces that bring things into existence.

 

[Justice and Rule]

Sort of. Problem is if you restict access for some eg put it in a museum/university it breeds resentment.

Things need to be available to everyone or not at all (eg kiddie porn) imho.

Mein Kampf for example last time I saw it was in the university library but I can buy a copy if I really want to (I don't).

Essentially it's saying "you're to stupid to read this". Breeds resentment and feeds into the out of touch academic narrative.

I'm not for necessarily restricting it, but I also think this argument is a complete non-sequitur. Like, Disney not having Song of the South available doesn't make me resentful because I don't care about seeing that media. Why would you feel resentful for a racist document that you normally wouldn't be interested in in the first place being restricted?

 

[Thomas Shey]

And now I'm thinking of Gamma World, which lead me to the Knights of Genetic Purity :-/
I wonder what things there are in older versions of non-D&D games that I've forgotten about that could lead to discussion.

Well, its not like the KoGP were presented as anything but villains.

 

[Gradine]

Sort of. Problem is if you restict access for some eg put it in a museum/university it breeds resentment.

This is actually a Catch 22, because not judiciously restricting access also breeds resentment. We've seen this play out plenty of times across RPG marketplaces.

You cannot please all the time; refusing to choose is, in itself, a choice. There is not a fence to sit on; a choice must be made, and it comes down to which groups of people you are comfortable displeasing.