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

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Ran Drums of Fire Mountain few years ago. The arts terrible wouldn't take much to clean it up and it's a good adventure otherwise.

The art is what the criticism centers on.

It's a lit more nuanced than what Americans are generally capable of understanding.

Shorter words, please.

 

[Incenjucar]

I believe the intention was to denote that the situation was complex and requires a nuanced understanding that is difficult to come by without greater immersion than is typically available from outside, rather than making a claim about intellectual abilities. A good example of where a sensitivity reader would help.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Should a driver not be blindfolded with their hands behind their head, ofc it would have been the decent thing to do. Do they need to - eh- unless they kill a requisite number of people I decide, I'm going to shrug my shoulders. If people do not like the massive property damage, they will be sued and feel the financial effects.

Again, it's just deciding if the level of harm means anything to us, not the victims. And then... deciding to let the invisible hand deal with racism? Ugh.

False equivalence

 

[Jaeger]

It mushes together multiple diverse groups of people together into a homogeneous one that doesn't seem to accurately depict any of them, calls some of the greatest sailors and navigators in world history primitives in dismissive language, describes gender roles and other cultural norms that appear not to actually exist, appears to use the Disney movie Moana as its basis of how Polynesian people view the ocean (great movie, but come on), skips past elements that are the bases of larger culture and generally views everything through a colonial lens without actually using any Polynesian sources or having actual Polynesian people involved in the project at all.

This reminds me a lot of what D&D has done with it's Medieval European influences in settings like the Forgotten Realms:

It mushes together multiple diverse groups of people together into a homogeneous ones that don't accurately depict any of them. Has only the most stereotypical presentations of how medieval European society actually worked, and describes gender roles and other cultural norms that do not to actually exist.
Completely dismissive of the actual religious theology, philosophy, and folklore of the era. A stated preference for using self-referential D&D Lore as the basis for how European people view the world (as opposed to actual medieval European history, religion, and folklore).
Skips past elements that are the bases of larger culture and generally views everything through a deconstructionist lens that is critical of any European sources, nor having actual Medieval scholars of history, religion, and folklore involved in the project at all.

Naturally I expect that WotC will get right on this...

 

[AnotherGuy]

This reminds me a lot of what D&D has done with it's Medieval European influences in settings like the Forgotten Realms:

Yup. Pretty much Traladarans in Mystara are a mixture of Bulgars, Serbs and Hungarians.

 

[Incenjucar]

Pretty sure that Greenwood is of European descent. Much better argument about all the other global cultures that FR borrows from.

 

[Zardnaar]

I believe the intention was to denote that the situation was complex and requires a nuanced understanding that is difficult to come by without greater immersion than is typically available from outside, rather than making a claim about intellectual abilities. A good example of where a sensitivity reader would help.

Well it's also because some of the hot button issues in America are reversed here. That's modern politics and in the colonialism era.

Slavery for example. British wiped it out.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Pretty sure that Greenwood is of European descent. Much better argument about all the other global cultures that FR borrows from.

That seems like a strange argument to make.
All of Europe is one now so its ok but Polynesians are different on every island.

 

[Zardnaar]

That seems like a strange argument to make.
All of Europe is one now so its ok but Polynesians are different on every island.

Polynesians are different on the same island. Here different Maraes can have different protocol's in the same region.

An example of from 20 odd years ago. Helen Clark our then prime minister did not end up visiting a marae because women traditionally are not allowed to speak on that marae. Not all Marae's follow that tradition while others will make exceptions for things like female heads of state or representatives of the crown eg governor generals.

Long story short she didn't go. Would have created a scene basically it was a lose lose situation for her.

Friends local marae here is completely different. They also have different gender roles around who can perform specific dances/haka as well. So either you respect their views (which don't conform to erm modern views) or you're imposing western imperialism onto their culture.

When I got invited to a marae we got the quick run down on expectations. Things like bow head slightly for speech, don't sit on table tops, food preparation etc.

 

[TheCultMachine]

Yessss. More groveling to the sensitive liberals.