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

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Or maybe people in real life see robots foremost as things, not persons. If we manage to develop self-aware IA one day in the future, there will be hard questions to answer (and Eberron is a wonderful way to make players think about it, I've tested it successfully...), but this forum is certainly not equiped to handle this discussion anymore than the former one.

 

[Hussar]

To me, it’s not that slavery is used as a theme. It’s how those slaves are depicted.

Are warforged drawn or described as “happy”? Drawn in silly clothes dancing? Written so that they were saved by someone? Written as brutish and stupid? Written as being literal monkeys?

No. They aren’t. They are portrayed as having various personalities, goals and almost always seriously.

It’s not specifically slavery that’s the problem. It’s drawing on racist tropes to describe fantasy people in a way that justifies or normalizes those descriptions that is the problem.

/edit. Now THAT is an autocorrect to remember.

 

[Faolyn]

I would hazard a guess that depending on your generation the resonance of Warforged and War Veterans will be a similar experience regardless of the war fought.

Quite possibly so. Although from what I've gathered, people were a lot more pleased about WWI or WWII vets then they were about Korean War or Vietnam War vets.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

To me, it’s not that slavery is used as a theme. It’s how those slaves are depicted.

Are warforged drawn or described as “happy”? Drawn in silly clothes dancing? Written so that they were saved by someone? Written as British and stupid? Written as being literal monkeys?

No. They aren’t. They are portrayed as having various personalities, goals and almost always seriously.

It’s not specifically slavery that’s the problem. It’s drawing on racist tropes to describe fantasy people in a way that justifies or normalizes those descriptions that is the problem.

When on earth did "British and stupid" become a slavery trope? .... Out of touch Irishman wants to know.

 

[SakanaSensei]

When on earth did "British and stupid" become a slavery trope? .... Out of touch Irishman wants to know.

Think it was autocorrect changing "brutish."

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Think it was autocorrect changing "brutish."

ok, that make more sense.

 

[Hussar]

Omg. Edited my post. Very very much an autocorrect fail. :embarrassed:

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Omg. Edited my post. Very very much an autocorrect fail. :embarrassed:

No worries

 

[Hussar]

No worries

Heh. Funny though.

But, there is a bit of a lesson there. It’s so easy I make mistakes in these conversations. Misused words - recently I saw someone confuse censor with censure which are very different words- mispeaks and out and out mistakes can cause the conversation to explode.

It’s not easy.

 

[Smackpixi]

So I wondered about the difference between this thing in a fantasy game is a racist trope and I am the racist for thinking this bad thing in a fantasy game represents this real world people.

It’s not actually hard to see a thing and think, whatever that creator’s intentions were, probably shouldn’t have gone there. And yet, sometimes, I do think problems are made where they don’t exist.

I came up with a pretty un surprising rule of three. If a thing hits three things in a historical racist trope, it’s racist. But if it only hits two, it‘s just a thing, and I’m projecting to think otherwise.

maybe this was too vague to make sense, but it’s working for me In my head tonight to see the difference.