D&D 5E Spelljammer Errata

[dave2008]

"I'm sorry that I assaulted this person. I have fail myself, my faith, and my country. I know that I was raised to always end fights as soon as they start, and do so hard. My country taught me in the military to use overwhelming force."
is also an apology with a good first two sentencies... pushing off responsibility to the military and there parents after ward though colors it

I don't interpret the rest of the statement as pushing off. You do. It is just a difference of our biases, not something intrinsic to the statement itself.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

The first line:

"We wanted to acknowledge and own the inclusion of offensive material within our recent Spelljammer: Adventures in Space content. We failed you, our players and our fans, and we are truly sorry."

That is really all you need. That sets the tone. The are sorry for the material that was in Spellgamer. They failed. That is here and now. Simple facts.

What you are suggesting is biased by interpretation and your viewpoint. The first sentence is clear.

Yes, if they had left it that, I'd have had no issue. As to the rest, your interpretation is no more grounded than mine. Both are opinions.

 

[darjr]

I love Chris Perkins, he has brought me a lot of joy over the years...but if I were his manager I wouldn't let him work without a sensitivity reader.

One of the lessons is that no one writing rpg content should

 

[Parmandur]

One of the lessons is that no one writing rpg content should

That is true.

 

[Mind of tempest]

perkins seems less evil and more kinda ignorant no malice just unable to see problems correctly.
I wonder if they will change the print copies of spelljammer?

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

perkins seems less evil and more kinda ignorant no malice just unable to see problems correctly.
I wonder if they will change the print copies of spelljammer?

I believe they stated in the errata message that it will be applied to future printings.

 

[grimslade]

It's simple. You don't have someone who is colorblind pick house paint colors without having another set of eyes look it over before you work on the siding. D&D Design needs to have a Sensitivity/Inclusivity editor on its team. The ideas going into this version of Spelljammer to allude to classics of Sci-Fi are a solid plan, but you need to address the cultural/historical implications of that material. Planet of the Apes was not subtle in its allegorical take on racism and man's inhumanity to man. The Heston/Roddy McDowell films doubled down on the Civil Rights allegory. This should have signaled that the homage would have to be handled with care. It was not.

Stop with the character assassination of individuals. It is obfuscation that allows the blind spot to continue. There are a lot of factors that went into this error. Budget. Time crunch. And a lack of attention to detail. I like Chris Perkins, other than his overuse of the word 'whimsy'. I really enjoy the content he puts out. He needs help to see things he can not. This is true for all of us. Hasbro/WotC need to help their teams succeed. Either have a team with a higher amount of diversity or you need to bring in specialists like an SEI Editor. With WotC's tight production schedule of under 2 years for a project, things are going to be missed. Having a set of eyes focused on looking for these sorts of errors will help to limit them.
I give the apology a B. They needed to quickly state their mistake and address previous mistakes that can lead readers to conclude there is a racial bias at play. I think some specific language should have been included and a specific plan to stop this from happening in the future would have made it an A. Overall, they acknowledged they messed up and are trying to fix this particular mistake pretty quickly for corporate.

 

[billd91]

I love Chris Perkins, he has brought me a lot of joy over the years...but if I were his manager I wouldn't let him work without a sensitivity reader.

This is probably true for all of them. One thing about managing/editing a project, you've got a lot of contexts in which you are seeing everything, primarily from a perspective of being right down in the trenches doing the work. You may lose track of the longer distance views that the consumers will have. This is one of the reasons good software companies will have multiple levels of code review, unit testing, user experience testing, and so on. You've got various stages in which a broader perspective is injected into the process. And that's why a sensitivity reader looking at the whole enchilada could have caught this before it got out into the wild.

 

[Stormonu]

"Evolved"? So it's fine to offend my faith, but don't get within 10 feet of being considered a bigot. Gotcha, thanks Wizards for being so sensitive.

 

[dave2008]

"Evolved"? So it's fine to offend my faith, but don't get within 10 feet of being considered a bigot. Gotcha, thanks Wizards for being so sensitive.

I am confused, what are you complaining about?