WotC WotC's Chris Perkins On D&D's Inclusivity Processes Going Forward

Over on D&D Beyond, WotC's Chris Perkins has written a blog entry about how the company's processes have been changed to improve the way the D&D studio deals with harmful content and inclusivity. This follows recent issues with racist content in Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, and involves working with external cultural consultants.

The studio’s new process mandates that every word, illustration, and map must be reviewed by multiple outside cultural consultants prior to publication.

Leveling Up Our Creative Process: Learnings From Spelljammer

In this blog post, I'll talk about how we in the D&D Studio are changing our review process following the problematic content that appeared in Spell...

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Incenjucar]

D&D lets you play as a human from a planar communal paradise or Athas or a rogue modron who keeps talking about their "crumpet zones". It's a game ripe for exploration of all kinds.

 

[Azzy]

You mean like the quote from page 4 from the guy offended by other people speaking for him and making the correlation between monkey and African American? He seems to get ignored a lot by people who feel offended on other peoples behalf.

Like I said before, the non-offended don't override the actual offense that other actual people are offended by. And many of us are not "offended" on others' behalf or speaking for them, but instead we're trying to point out that actual people have said that they are being offended and we are listening to them.

 

[Ixal]

EDIT: Sorry, bad tone on my part. Let me try again:

I hear people say things like your saying, but that's not my experience. Often, this sort of comment appears to be an attempt to dismiss others' concerns as misplaced or exagerated or faked. No one gets offended on behalf of someone else.

In my experience they do.
There are some pretty good example for that from outside the RPG business, like where US students got offended by a fashion show with chinese dresses worn by Americans, but the Chinese people saw this as advertisment for their industry and the "superiority" of their culture, but I am not sure if they go too off topic.
But even within the D&D world, the complains about Oriental Adventure did not come from people living or having grown up in Asia, but mostly from Americans with no or only small connections to Asian cultures. Yet they complained how Asian culture was represented.

Another thing is, by immediately jumping to support one type of offence you are drowning out the other. The guy on page 4 who complained that people automatically think monkey = African American and are reinforcing this connection by assuming he must be offended by space monkeys that were uplifted to be slaves? His offence gets dismissed because people immediately supported the Hadozee offence. But how many affected people actually made that connection without the internet outrage on behalf of others?

 

[J-H]

Any idea how much this costs, like on a per-book type basis? My first thought was "that's expensive!" but then I remembered that publishing doesn't pay well, contract work in publishing pays less well, and editing is probably less expensive than writing.

 

[Incenjucar]

As an ally, I also reserve the right to be upset that someone is being inconsiderate toward people I care about (which is all non-horrible people). Just because I'm not my mother doesn't mean I'm unaffected by someone throwing down a "yo mama" joke.

 

[Minigiant]

On the one hand, I don't feel it's D&D's place to have outrageously alien roles. I think a lot of people are happy enough with Vulcans and Romulans level alien design; humans with an exaggerated feature are relatable enough to play for an amateur player or child. On the other hand, it's very easy to fall back on stereotypes and tropes that are inaccurate and unacceptable today.

Oh base D&D doesn't need crazy alien roles.

But if WOTC could stop attempting to rehash the past for nostaglia money, they wouldn't run into problems of rewriting and reusing ideas, concepts, and sources for a time when writers and building didn't care about inclusitivity and sensitivity.

I mean if you paid me a ton of money I could easily dodge being offensive to most groups when designing the culture and lore of a fantasy race.

But for me this is natural as I an a minority for the most multicultural city in the world and having a vast spread of experiences with many different cultures.

I don't know where the middle ground is. Nobody does. We're all going to fumble around in the dark until we find the path. As long as we keep trying to do better, I don't think we can ask for much more.

I know where the middle ground is. It's called doing the work and not getting lazy or sloppy. The whole Spelljammer thing is Classic Big Corporation Sloppiness. While everyone was shocked, I was counting the days.

There is a haze of nonchalance and sloppiness in 5e that I recognize from working. You gotta fight the Corporate Grip of "Passing the work to an underling who passes the job to someone else and no oversight in done on the chain and Kaboom!"

 

[darjr]

The argument that folks, who are not a part of the targeted group, shouldn't be offended by bigotry against minority marginalized groups, is an argument supporting bigotry.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Like I said before, the non-offended don't override the actual offense that other actual people are offended by.

i mean if 3 kids in class are being bullied by 2 kids in the class don't we WANT the 15 kids to stand up and say "Hey, those 2 are the problem" even if the 15 is more then the 3...

 

[Ixal]

i mean if 3 kids in class are being bullied by 2 kids in the class don't we WANT the 15 kids to stand up and say "Hey, those 2 are the problem" even if the 15 is more then the 3...

Only if the 3 kids actually feel bullied because if they don't you have 15 kids bullying the other 5 (the 2 to stop and the 3 to feel bullied)

 

[CleverNickName]

Only if the 3 kids actually feel bullied because if they don't you have 15 kids bullying the 2 (and also the 3 to feel bullied by the 2).

Um, what?

We could just believe the three kids when they say they're being bullied and put an end to it. Why wouldn't we do that?