D&D General PETITION: Acknowledge Hasbro's hurtful content (Black orcs, Asian yellow orcs, Native American red orcs)—through an Amendatory Bundle [+ thread]

[aco175]

There does seem to be a lot of asks for the company. I could get behind making the title PWYW and donate to charity, but to hire consultants to comb through the book and hire culturally informed designers is asking too much.

I and the other signatories call on the Hasbro and WOTC leadership to:

1. Apologize for the hateful and hurtful depictions and racial slurs found in its GAZ10 PDF product.
2. Donate all of the past proceeds of this PDF—dating all the way back to July 29th, 2014, when the PDF was first offered for sale—to one or more appropriate cultural charities, such as the Lakota Waldorf School.
3. From henceforth, make the PDF "pay what you will," with all proceeds going to such charities, in perpetuity.
4. Note: let it be known to all that I have never called for 'censorship.' Rather than divide the community by yanking and hiding this title in a vault (in the manner of Disney's Song of the South), I call on Hasbro to humbly unite the community in this way:
5. Hire one or more external cultural consultants with real academic credentials, to comb through the book and make a report of the exact nature of its wrongs. Hasbro's own boilerplate disclaimer claims that Hasbro "teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end." So, if Hasbro is here to "teach" us, then let's have the "teaching" done by real teachers with real credentials.
6. Henceforth, bundle this new scholarly report with the GAZ10 PDF, as an educational "teaching."
7. Also make amends from an "in-world" (fictional) perspective: by hiring one or more culturally informed designers (who are either themselves experts in the World of Mystara, or in collaboration with aficionados of that world) to write at least a short re-imagining of the Broken Lands of Thar, whereby the racist crudities found in GAZ10 are revealed to be totally false propaganda by enemies of the peoples of Thar. There are any number of ways in which all of the problematic facets can be completely amended, while creatively preserving and enhancing the existence of the peoples of Thar within the fictional Known World of Mystara.
8. Note: GAZ10 is also advertised as being compatible with the Forgotten Realms and the World of Greyhawk, with a suggested placement in Faerûn's "region of Thar," and/or a magical portal to there, and also to the "WORLD OF GREYHAWK Goblins of the Pomarj, or to Iuz." And so these amendatory actions apply not only to the World of Mystara, but also secondarily to those two worlds as well.
9. Henceforth bundle this amended re-envisioning of the Land of Thar with the GAZ10 PDF, along with the academic/educational report.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

This digital product was published in 2014.

Cut-and-pasting from the FAQ in the above-linked PDF:

Q: A few years back, Hasbro added a disclaimer to the product pages for D&D Classics PDFs. Isn't that enough?

A: No. That is a generic, milquetoast, platitudinous, boilerplate disclaimer, which was robotically slapped on all of the thousands of pre-5E D&D Classics PDFs. (For GAZ10, this may have taken place on November 13th, 2020, the most recent update of DTRPG page.) This bland disclaimer does not really address the specific contents of GAZ10.

Furthermore, even the bland words of Hasbro's disclaimer are themselves a call to action. Hasbro says it's here to "teach" us, and that they are committed to making this GAZ10 product "as welcoming and inclusive as possible"—a work which "will never end." Well, if Hasbro's work of "teaching" us "will never end"…then it's time to get crackin'!

My 48-page research document and call to action—which you're reading right now—are congruent with the true meaning (rather than the platitudinous tenor) of those words. Time for a teachable moment.

So what, it has the disclaimer.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

There does seem to be a lot of asks for the company. I could get behind making the title PWYW and donate to charity, but to hire consultants to comb through the book and hire culturally informed designers is asking too much.

Hi, it may be noted that I (an unpaid independent researcher) have already done most of the "combing" work for them.

As for hiring one (or more) cultural-informed designer to write a short Web Enhancement which retcons the racist stuff. In a recent interview, Hasbro spokesman Kyle Brink states that cultural reviewers will put eyes on everything going forward:

"One [in regard to the Hadozee debacle], we were not reviewing everything, and so nobody had reviewed it, and it even got in there outside the normal process. So we've corrected both of those things. We have a much greater rigor on our basic processes, and we've also layered in multiple independent inclusivity reviewers on everything we publish." [...]
"D&D has a long history. It’s got a long and deep lore that goes back to some pretty troubling stuff. And so we’re in a place where we want to acknowledge and bring forward some of the cool nostalgia, but also fix the broken stuff. Fix the stuff that was wrong about it."

The Petition is only asking Hasbro to apply that same process looking backward this one time, to the most egregious example of the "pretty troubling stuff." Because Hasbro is still profiting off of this. It's not in the past. It's now. And it's been going on for nine years.

And let me nip any false implications by further posters in this thread: In my amends proposal, I speak only of "at least a short re-imagining." Nowhere in my proposal do I call for a re-do of the entire product and a full-blown re-publication. We're talking of a few pages of a retcon re-framing story, bundled with the academic "teaching moment" as a modest PDF bundled with the existing GAZ10 digital product, which would not be reformatted.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Hi, what has made this more of a hot button, is Hasbro's recent attempts to portray itself as a "protector" and "moderator" of the game community--with Hasbro claiming its "core goals" are to protect us from "hateful and hurtful content." Please see the recent statements by Hasbro spokesman Kyle Brink, which I've helpfully gathered on the first page of the above-linked PDF. Thank you!

Yes but you keep making threads about this stuff and it’s starting to get annoying

 

[Dungeonosophy]

So what, it has the disclaimer.

Hi, I labeled this a [+positive] thread. Please enjoy other threads at ENWorld. Thank you!

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Yes but you keep making threads about this stuff and it’s starting to get annoying

Hi, I brought the initial phase of this research to ENWorld in one thread in 2021.

I recall two recent threads whose topics were "what would you or I do if we were in charge of D&D?", where I include this call to make amends for GAZ10. Along with my description of many, many other concrete actions which have nothing to do with racial/cultural amends (e.g. spin off the D&D RPG Studio as an independent B-Corp, develop D&D 7e, etc.)

This thread is tagged [+positive]. If this thread annoys you, please move along to other ENWorld discussions. Thank you!

 

[Justice and Rule]

Yes but you keep making threads about this stuff and it’s starting to get annoying

I mean, alternatively you could just not enter them. No one is forcing you, after all.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

To leave going along with the threads premise and on a more positive note. No I won’t sign, on the grounds I think the demands are unreasonable to ask for from people who did not even write the book. The book is bad and racist and I just say don’t buy it.

 

[John Lloyd1]

Is there anything worth saving from GAZ10?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yes but you keep making threads about this stuff and it’s starting to get annoying

Because 'this stuff' is important and people would really like to have just one thread to discuss that without being brigaded by people trying to drown out that discussion.