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

 

[generic]

It is of interest to note that the majority of words used in demotic English are Germanic in origin, while the near-entirety of academic vocabulary is derived from Greek and Latin.

 

[Umbran]

It is of interest to note that the majority of words used in demotic English are Germanic in origin, while the near-entirety of academic vocabulary is derived from Greek and Latin.

Noting, of course, that "demotic language" is an academic term, and the word "demotic" has Greek roots

The term for "common folk's language" is not, in fact, used by the common folk.

 

[generic]

Noting, of course, that "demotic language" is an academic term, and the word "demotic" has Greek roots

The term for "common folk's language" is not, in fact, used by the common folk.

Quite.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

When you hear it... has anyone actually said it? Has anyone literally used those words?

One cannot be a valid proponent of listening to nuance, and then actively misstate opinions in the discussion.

It is not fair to ask someone in thread who was already banned from it and can't respond.

 

[Alzrius]

When you hear it... has anyone actually said it? Has anyone literally used those words?

This makes it sound as though you're not familiar with "dog whistling." Here's a quick primer to get you up to speed:

What's the Political Meaning of 'Dog Whistle'?

A message only some can hear

www.merriam-webster.com

 

[SakanaSensei]

Or, perhaps less colorfully - English is a language that has undergone mixing/hybridization several times over in its history.

The way I explain it to my English teacher colleagues, because many of them want to know “why are you like this?!”, is that “England was kind of bad at war until they weren’t. Got taken over by Rome, got conquested by the Normans, overall a bad time.” I have a tendency to reach for the humorous and colorful, though.

I’ve come to appreciate the beauty of English more, being away from it for years now, but the only thing I envy wrt English learners is breadth of material to immerse with. For Japanese I’ve got anime and soap opera-y live action shows taking up about 60-70% of the cultural landscape as far as fiction is concerned.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

"English is the product of a Norman warrior trying to make a date with an Anglo-Saxon bar-maid, and as such is no more legitimate than any of the other products of that conversation." - H. Beam Piper, Fuzzy Sapiens

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Hmm... interesting. For me, among the foreign languages that I've studied (English, French, German and Russian), English has been the easiest. Maybe comparable to French, but just because French is much closer to Italian than English is.

Interesting. As an English-speaker, I find German to be comically easy, despite having originally learned it (and poorly at that) decades ago.

Coming from English, it's amazing to have a language that's 99.99% phonetic.

It also has a comically small number of words that are used to, even more comically, smash together to make compound words instead of inventing new words: A glove is a "hand shoe," because the Germans already had "hand" and "shoe," so why bother with another word? And turtles are "shield toads," which sounds like a minor AD&D monster.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I am not sure language difficulty correlate exactly to number of words. Combining them is often complex (at least when you try to sound as a native) and the rules might not be easy to grasp because they are created out of habit more than by a formal system. However, it might be easier to achieve basic fluency for everyday/business conversations.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

sounds like a minor AD&D monster.

I think it would make an awesome Monster Manual if we were to take the literal, word-for-word translation of German nouns to English and make them monsters.