D&D 5E Spelljammer Errata

[MNblockhead]

I don't think Perkins (or anyone on the team) is racist... I don't know them. HOWEVER, if there was a petition to fire everyone and start over I would seriously think about signing it. Because if it was on purpose, or by accident, this is happening too much.

I am MUCH more willing to assign incompetence and error over malice and prejudice.

Do you put most of the blame on the creators? Or are they not given the budget and support they need to have sensitivity readers? In my experience, those shouting the loudest about incompetence and ignorance on these issues tend to find their foot in their mouth when they have to put themselves out there. To say Perkins et al are incompetent is rather rich considering how successful the game is. To fire everyone and start over would mean losing some of the most successful designers and a huge amount of institutional memory and experience. I'm not optimistic that replacing the team with all new people, who may have much better DEI credentials, will avoid similar problems. We all have our blind spots. Even if it would help avoid many of these kinds of issues, what makes a great sensitivity reader does not necessarily mean they will be successful designers, writers, and artists.

WotC just needs to hire and contract with sensitivity readers, where that is their full job. Let the designers design. Let them make their mistakes in house with a chance for those mistake to be caught in house before publication. That will not only avoid this issue by catching the mistakes but help educate the writers, designers, and artists. You don't educate and improve an organization culture by hanging your creatives out to dry and making them the scapegoats.

These are growing pains many companies have go through as the expand into increasingly diverse marketplaces. D&D is a big brand now. And an increasingly global one. These issues are only going to get more complicated. Most of these issues are within the cultural framework of the United States, in particular, and the "west" in general. There are going to be many new cans of worms that will be opened as they publish editions outside of western cultures. And with movies and video games there is even greater potential for issues to arise. They need to make the necessary investments to properly review and focus-group test their content. Not gut the creative talent that made the brand so successful.

 

[Faolyn]

Man I really enjoyed reading the spelljammer set because of the lore. “Practically lore-free” seems like a pretty dramatic overstatement.

In comparison to the amount of lore in VGR, I'd say it's an understatement. The Rock of Bral was fleshed out, but the Rock is just one aspect of the setting.

The original setting had all sorts of info as to what planets were like and even suggested weirdly-shaped planets, or planets on the back of tremendous creatures, and suggested that these were relatively normal sights. It posited weird suns, or having suns in geocentric orbits, or living suns. It talked about how the stars could have been painted on the inside of one sphere, or in another could have been lights mounted on a complex array of gears in another sphere, or could have been flaming braziers on the backs of tremendous beetles that crawled across the inside surface of the sphere. It had information on faiths, military organizations, trading companies, and other groups. 2e Spelljammer didn't have tons of lore--not in comparison to 2e Planescape or Ravenloft--but what it produced painted a picture of the setting that I honestly feel is missing from the 5e book. I didn't expect them to replicate The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook, and I liked a lot of what we got from the book (and loved the art), but I had hoped for a bit more. I would have gladly taken a less heavy paper stock if it meant having more pages in each book.

Personally, I think WotC was burned by the people who were complaining about VGR's lore and went too far the other way.

 

[Faolyn]

Which makes it even more strange that some people take so much issues with that story. Especially as being created as a servitor race is not exactly new in D&D (dragonborn and possibly kobolds to dragons, ect.)
Should a RPG company completely stop writing lore (which basically is the majority of writing they make their money with) because of the off chance someone feels offended and twitters about it?

In the real world, an unfortunately large number of people try to insult and dehumanize other people by calling them monkeys and apes. Few people have tried to say insult others by calling them dragons.

 

[MNblockhead]

The idea of having a full-time sensitivity writer or editor or person on staff is not something that most companies have ever thought about.

Maybe in the US gaming industry. But companies selling internationally have been stepping on cultural mines for decades and big brands certainly invest in avoiding costly mistakes that end up requiring reprints, scrapping and redoing marketing campaigns, issuing recalls, getting their content banned, etc. D&D is a big brand now with and increasingly diverse and global audience. After the issues they have already have, I don't know why they haven't learned their lesson, but I'm sure they are thinking about it now.

 

[Umbran]

The hadozee were uplifted with the intention to be slaves...

Mod Note:
That thread got closed.
That means the subject is closed, for now.
Please leave it closed for now

 

[Dire Bare]

Do you put most of the blame on the creators? Or are they not given the budget and support they need to have sensitivity readers? In my experience, those shouting the loudest about incompetence and ignorance on these issues tend to find their foot in their mouth when they have to put themselves out there. To say Perkins et al are incompetent is rather rich considering how successful the game is. To fire everyone and start over would mean losing some of the most successful designers and a huge amount of institutional memory and experience. I'm not optimistic that replacing the team with all new people, who may have much better DEI credentials, will avoid similar problems. We all have our blind spots. Even if it would help avoid many of these kinds of issues, what makes a great sensitivity reader does not necessarily mean they will be successful designers, writers, and artists.

WotC just needs to hire and contract with sensitivity readers, where that is their full job. Let the designers design. Let them make their mistakes in house with a chance for those mistake to be caught in house before publication. That will not only avoid this issue by catching the mistakes but help educate the writers, designers, and artists. You don't educate and improve an organization culture by hanging your creatives out to dry and making them the scapegoats.

These are growing pains many companies have go through as the expand into increasingly diverse marketplaces. D&D is a big brand now. And an increasingly global one. These issues are only going to get more complicated. Most of these issues are within the cultural framework of the United States, in particular, and the "west" in general. There are going to be many new cans of worms that will be opened as they publish editions outside of western cultures. And with movies and video games there is even greater potential for issues to arise. They need to make the necessary investments to properly review and focus-group test their content. Not gut the creative talent that made the brand so successful.

Agreed. I don't think anybody currently on the D&D team needs to lose their jobs. They need more help, a bigger team. WotC needs to hire additional support, folks who aren't Euro-American and who have some level of expertise in sensitivity editing and cultural issues. And then the D&D team needs to listen to those folks, which is a problem they've had in the past . . .

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

In comparison to the amount of lore in VGR, I'd say it's an understatement. The Rock of Bral was fleshed out, but the Rock is just one aspect of the setting.

The original setting had all sorts of info as to what planets were like and even suggested weirdly-shaped planets, or planets on the back of tremendous creatures, and suggested that these were relatively normal sights. It posited weird suns, or having suns in geocentric orbits, or living suns. It talked about how the stars could have been painted on the inside of one sphere, or in another could have been lights mounted on a complex array of gears in another sphere, or could have been flaming braziers on the backs of tremendous beetles that crawled across the inside surface of the sphere. It had information on faiths, military organizations, trading companies, and other groups.

My impression over the last few settings was that they weren't really settings for a custom campaign but a backdrop for the campaign in the book, without a lot of consideration over what to do outside of it. They must assume that GM will fill the blanks or rely on earlier material if they so want, but much of the audience won't play more than the ready-to-play campaign, with perhaps a few side missions.

 

[MNblockhead]

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.

I wouldn't let any of my creators work without one. Chris isn't the only one that has stepped in it. And I have never met anyone that wasn't unintentionally insensitive to some of these issues.

If you put the onus completely on the creatives, it will have a freezing effect. They should be free to create but their output is subject to review. It is just not enough to have someone come in and provide training. Sensitivity readers are a type of editor. They should not be the DEI HR-focused people. They have a special skill set and they should also have the skills to run focus groups with different audiences, and other skills to avoid their own blind spots.

 

[Faolyn]

It did at least have lore to dislike.

If the current political climate has hamstrung WotC to this degree (especially if they can't seem to navigate these waters adriotly) then that's even more reason for me to cut them loose. If they aren't allowed to use space nazis because they look like people who are generally thought of as "good guys", then creativity has been curtailed farther than I'm comfortable with.

I'm mostly guessing as to the reason why they weren't included.

But I don't think that, in and of itself, is a good reason to cut them loose. WotC isn't writing for me or you. They're writing for millions of people across the world, many of whom are currently being negatively affected by people who are treated as the good guys by people in power but who act like nazis and fascists. And because WotC is producing an open-ended game, not a story they can plot out and end how they like, literally the only logical thing they can do is to make the decision to not have their normally good guys be fascists.

They are giving you the tools needed to have your own Elven Imperial Fleet. You don't need a book to tell you to do that. You don't even need the original SJ material to do that. You don't need any SJ material for that, even--you can have these guys as regular ocean-farers, if you like. What they aren't doing is insisting that its part of the setting whether you like it or not.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm mostly guessing as to the reason why they weren't included.

But I don't think that, in and of itself, is a good reason to cut them loose. WotC isn't writing for me or you. They're writing for millions of people across the world, many of whom are currently being negatively affected by people who are treated as the good guys by people in power but who act like nazis and fascists. And because WotC is producing an open-ended game, not a story they can plot out and end how they like, literally the only logical thing they can do is to make the decision to not have their normally good guys be fascists.

They are giving you the tools needed to have your own Elven Imperial Fleet. You don't need a book to tell you to do that. You don't even need the original SJ material to do that. You don't need any SJ material for that, even--you can have these guys as regular ocean-farers, if you like. What they aren't doing is insisting that its part of the setting whether you like it or not.

Which is why old settings should be retired entirely, so they can make new settings that fit in the box they're allowed to play in. Or, if lore is that meaningless, then just present the rules and make people tell their own stories entirely. That's the only way to avoid these issues completely and still make money.