D&D 5E Spelljammer Errata

[doctorbadwolf]

Have you seen the hadozee image directly compared to old minstrel images? It's so close you have to wonder if the artist intentionally copied it! Character pose and everything, it's not just a simian-person with a lute. I don't think the artist did this intentionally, but oof.

The artwork IS problematic on its own, but combined with the missteps in the lore, it's a perfect storm of a blunder. WotC is right to change the lore and remove the image.

I have, and I don’t buy it.

But again, it doesn’t have to make sense to me. I don’t have to agree that the similarity is actually strong. It hurts people, so it goes.

Any smiling, dancing, musician, would have gotten the same reaction, because it is a simian character, IMO, and that is…a bummer. Simian people are cool.

 

[Dire Bare]

Apparently, because Hadozee have a simian look, it was felt necessary to include a statement "they evolved from smaller mammals" and "evolved wing-like flaps". D&D is full of races that come into the fantasy milleniu fully formed and developed without having to have "evolved" from some lesser creature.

Why did they feel compelled to pull in a subject that has real-world contention? They removed the other bits, why couldn't they remove the portions calling back to evolution. Just because of my faith, am I supposed to just gloss over it and ignore it?

And this is NOT something I am joking around with.

WotC should not worry about offending individuals or avoiding all offense . . . that is an impossible and unreasonable task.

What should be avoided, and what is okay to include? The guiding criteria should be, does the inclusion promote harm to others. Tropes or stereotypes that are racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic fit that bill. Folks religious beliefs that run counter to established scientific ideas does not fit the bill.

Plenty of folks hold religious views not in step with modern science, but yet manage not to get offended when the scientific views are incorporated into literature and gaming. Describing the hadozee as an evolved species causes you no harm. No more so than the presence of magic, player characters that derive power from demonic sources (warlocks), or the presence of evil spirits in the game.

 

[dave2008]

I personally find it completely unacceptable to conclude that there cannot be a race of intelligent simians.

Just don’t make the monkey people also former slaves.

I also have trouble taking the idea that a simian bard with a lute is inherently reminiscent of minstrel shows entirely seriously, though. As with many other things I find absurd, I just have to accept that if it hurts people that hurt is valid and should be respected on some level.

Sure, but I like the Starfrontier's imagery better and it avoids those issues (to some extent - you could still call them simian)

 

[Dire Bare]

I have, and I don’t buy it.

But again, it doesn’t have to make sense to me. I don’t have to agree that the similarity is actually strong. It hurts people, so it goes.

Any smiling, dancing, musician, would have gotten the same reaction, because it is a simian character, IMO, and that is…a bummer. Simian people are cool.

Simian-people are cool! And I'm bummed WotC has had to move away from describing the hadozee as simian, but they kind of have to at this point.

It's part of my frustration with this blunder. Had WotC avoided the seemingly obvious mistake of describing a simian-like folk as slaves, building on existing lore that described them as happy, willing slaves . . . . we could have had our super-cool simian hadozee/yazirians.

Ah well, we've gained more than we've lost with WotC's correction to their blunder, and I can use the hadozee in my home games however I want . . . which will be simian, but will NOT be a former slave race or a people who just love that manual labor . . .

 

[pukunui]

The art from the Races section was definitely removed.

Interesting. At first they’d just removed the piece that had three different hadozee and replaced it with the one holding two swords. I wonder why they decided to get rid of that one as well?

Do we think they’re going to completely redo their look?

 

[Stormonu]

All this does make me wonder if the Beedle & Grimm version I've ordered will have the updated or original text. And if it will affect the delivery date.

 

[ReshiIRE]

Don't dither on the issue... if you want to call Perkins racist then just do it. Don't just imply it so you can give yourself an out if you get challenged on it.

Sure.

Perkins is more than likely, at the very least, highly ignorant if this keeps happening under his watch, constantly, over various things.

Now don't dither on the issue. You disagree, so show that he isn't racist or highly ignorant and that these are innocent mistakes, and I will accept that. Don't just imply you disagree.

Instead of smugly admonishing someone for pointing out this shite keeps happening under his and WoTC's watch. Repeatedly, and in this case, very blatantly, with only minimum steps taken to deal with it.

I don't want to call him racist and want to err on the side of good faith, as I do respect him and others seem to point out that he's pleasant to work with. But I cannot do that if these patterns and things keep happening, especially over this one edition, when other companies have taken better, more strident and aggressive steps to sort issues like this.

 

[Dire Bare]

All this does make me wonder if the Beedle & Grimm version I've ordered will have the updated or original text. And if it will affect the delivery date.

If B&G has already gone to production . . . I'd expect text to mirror the original release, but perhaps with a note thrown in the box acknowledging the issue. If they haven't gone to production, it should be an easy fix to incorporate the errata.

But . . . I think we can survive a delay in product. It's a better choice than continuing to publish harmful content.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ravenloft was well-known to have problems (the Vistani) as well as having nearly all of their domains rooted in real-world places or issues. A sensitivity reader is very much necessary for that. WotC likely thought that Spelljammer was so fantastic in nature that it wouldn't have the same issues. Just dump the Aparusa, who weren't even remotely important anyway, make the elves not be fascists and the orcs not be Always Evil, and you're good to go.

Obviously, they were wrong about that, and I do hope that they always use a sensitivity reader in the future.

What's wrong with the elves being fascists? It's certainly not all elves (and they can make that clear), and there's nothing wrong with evil societies existing in fiction. How many fictional antagonistic cultures were based on the Nazis anyway?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

At one point or another, I think every (intelligent) D&D race has been a slave to some other race in one product or another. Unfortunately, certain combinations play back to stereotypes/tropes that are just no longer acceptable.

As for simic races, D&D has had many over the years - Hadozee, Dakon, White Apes, and Grommans, just to name a few. It seems we've seen less and less of such races of late, and I've noticed a reluctance for people to even use creatures such as Gorillians in games for reasons I don't fully understand.

And I think the last time that even near-humans, like Neaderthals, were mentioned in D&D was some time back in 2E.

Yeah I really wish that stuff was in the game more, especially straight up simian humanoids.

Sure, but I like the Starfrontier's imagery better and it avoids those issues (to some extent - you could still call them simian)

I prefer the more simian look, but it’s a tainted well with a race whose history strongly involves slavery.

Simian-people are cool! And I'm bummed WotC has had to move away from describing the hadozee as simian, but they kind of have to at this point.

Yeah, tbh they should have chosen between simians and gliders, and then been very careful about simians.

It's part of my frustration with this blunder. Had WotC avoided the seemingly obvious mistake of describing a simian-like folk as slaves, building on existing lore that described them as happy, willing slaves . . . . we could have had our super-cool simian hadozee/yazirians.

Ah well, we've gained more than we've lost with WotC's correction to their blunder, and I can use the hadozee in my home games however I want . . . which will be simian, but will NOT be a former slave race or a people who just love that manual labor . . .

I agree.

Interesting. At first they’d just removed the piece that had three different hadozee and replaced it with the one holding two swords. I wonder why they decided to get rid of that one as well?

Do we think they’re going to completely redo their look?

If they do, an easy change would be to have them look more like sugar gliders. Or more like recent planet of the apes, or otherwise less human.