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

[Alzrius]

Just a note: I don't think we have "A-Game threads" at ENWorld. That's an RPG.net thing, not an ENWorld thing.

And they should be left there.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

That is child's view. Just because there is something else worse going on, doesn't mean YOU should shut down discussion of anything else.
I thought Orcs of Thar was deleted and not for sale, and I find it quite disgusting that it is.

What doesn't surprise me, is a bought of good old mid western boys laughing and joking that racism is fine, "just ignore it bro".
Well no, I choose not to "just ignore it bro".

And shame on you boys that are happy with such a racist property up for sale.
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Tell you what super mature knight:

How about you look through cinema, music and rpg material. Other art too. Anything you find objectionable you can delete from existence.

Pass the lot to the next guy let him do the same. And onward. Then we will all be safe.

Wtf?

Some people like choice which includes the right to pass something by that is offensive.

I said this stuff is dumb and I would not buy it but apparently that is still worthy of your box of shame.

I hope your horse has stirrups. It’s a long fall from where you sit.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

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!

I have to give some credit to this. I thought their excuses to be beyond absurd. It has nothing to do with profits or control of IP. It’s all for the people! I just can’t.

And I am not even morally outraged that they are profit driven. It just did not benefit me so I was onboard with not supporting them with my cash.

These are not mutually exclusive things necessarily but this just rang so hollow to me.

 

[dave2008]

And they should be left there.

What is an "A-game" thread?

 

[bedir than]

My main question is

Why should these resources be shifted from current products that sell in massive quantities to this rare product for a version of the game that's nearly dead?

 

[billd91]

Writing caricatures of minorities becomes an "important historic document", kind of like the magna carta?
Never mind, I see exactly where you stand.

Kinda hard to read tone on the internet... but based on the context, I'm not at all sure you do.

 

[SteveC]

The thread requirements on this (+, 'A Game" which is something I've only seen at RPG.net) make it so that you can't have a discussion on the issue, so I won't. I think there is a discussion to be had, however.

Edited to add: I don't recommend using the 'A Game' concept here, since it squelches discussion even more. I still use the "Eric's Grandma" rule, so I am always on my A game.

 

[Justice and Rule]

The existence of the thread doesn't annoy me. Quite the contrary; it's a worthwhile topic, and I'm glad to see it raised.

The attempt to use the [+positive] tag to suppress dissent and make the thread an echo chamber, however, doesn't sit so well.

This. If you are not prepared to listen to dissenting opinions, expressed reasonably and politely, you are part of the problem, not part of the solution. People who disagree with you do not do so because it says "always evil" on their character sheet.

In my experience "+" threads are not really about squelching dissent as trying to talk about a topic without necessarily getting absorbed in certain arguments. It doesn't necessarily mean you can't disagree, but it's largely meant to warn off threadcrapping.

Still doesn't seem to work, but oh well.

What is an "A-game" thread?

On RPG.net, for certain emotionally-charged and current topics they put the "A-Game" tag which means that the thread will be monitored more often by the mod-team and they set ground rules so that discussion doesn't devolve too badly. For example, rampant speculation is typically frowned on for news events (so that it doesn't get conflated with facts), news has to be sourced (typically to reliable news sources), and people are told to back off the snark. Basically it's meant to be a more serious discussion, thus better behavior is expected than normal and a higher standard is enforced by mods.

It's not a bad system, but it's not for every topic, nor every site.

 

[Cadence]

Absolutely not.
This petition is a manifesto of the cancel culture and the prevailing hypocrisy that wants to 'revise' the works of the past by imposing the vision of some who believe they have a 'superior morality' as is happening with Dahl's works.
Instead of wanting to erase the past, let them publish notes highlighting why something acceptable thirty years ago is no longer acceptable now, and everyone draws their own conclusions.
Racism is an idiot's idea regardless, but it is not by deleting a work that you delete the problem, far from it, you sweep it under the carpet.
In other words, what is being proposed is called CENSURE, and is in no way acceptable.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-- George Santayana

Book burning:

Book burning - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

These sum my thoughts on the subject.

It seems stretched to me to liken an IP owner no longer selling something to book burning. They aren't collecting the ones already out there and taking them away.

In practical terms, this feels like it is asking for every creator to offer every version of everything for sale forever. (Should the publisher of Yeat's have had to keep the earlier collections in print forever because The Second Coming was heavily revised by Yeats? Should creators of TV series be required to offer video copies in perpetuity? Or does the reason for the revision matter, and who gets to judge that?). What if they offered Gaz10 but it was $500 going to charity? Or does it need to be affordable?

As far as people forgetting that there was racism in games, what if they joined with other game publishers to make a "History of Racism, Sexism, and Bigotry in TTRPGs and a Brighter Future" where they had the problematic excerpts and then also showed how things changed over the years. If a book like that was available would it stop the forgetting? Would that actually make it easier to see and remember because it is no longer mostly in random modules?

 

[Enrahim2]

In practical terms, this feels like it is asking for every creator to offer every version of everything for sale forever. (Should the publisher of Yeat's had to keep the earlier collections in print forever because The Second Coming was heavily revised by Yeats? Should creators of TV series be required to offer video copies in perpetuity? Or does the reason for the revision matter, and who gets to judge that?). What if they offered Gaz10 but it was $500 going to charity? Or does it need to be affordable?

(I think this is a dangerous tangent. There are actually strong arguments that can be made that commercial entities no longer wanting to make their works available should release those works to public domain. And bringing in that seem like would be derailing this completely off topic..)