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Closely reading the OGL statement by Hasbro-WotC
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<blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 8900793" data-attributes="member: 14159"><p>The thing with the "racism" part is, that I've pointed out repeatedly, is that unless the conditions by which WotC can revoke a license for any kind of "bigoted" content is that it can be so open-ended that someone can find fault with anything.</p><p></p><p>If it's purely at WotC's discretion. . .it's meaningless.</p><p></p><p>WotC has already said, before the OGL debacle, that they were moving away from calling character races "races" and giving character races alignments all out of racism concerns. . .so using common gaming terminology and concepts from almost 50 years of D&D could be called "racist".</p><p></p><p>One college banned the use of the word "field" in its curriculum, so there could be no "field tests" or "field offices". . .because slaves worked in fields and they were concerned the use of the word "field" by the school could be racially offensive (<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/14/1148470571/usc-office-removes-field-from-curriculum-racist" target="_blank">https://www.npr.org/2023/01/14/1148470571/usc-office-removes-field-from-curriculum-racist</a>) </p><p></p><p>This editorial from 2020 argues that most of the tropes and conventions that underlie the entire fantasy genre are racist, that the fantasy genre as we know it is inherently racist. By the definitions of this editorial writer, almost any traditional D&D adventure or campaign setting would be "racist". (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/nov/03/racism-fantasy-fiction-role-playing-games" target="_blank">It’s time for fantasy fiction and role-playing games to shed their racist history</a>) </p><p></p><p>Then there's the amount of well established D&D content that some people complain about. Remember in 2020 when someone complained that the 1e Oriental Adventures was racist (and the reasons included PC races in that book having ability score penalties. . .which was normal in 1e and didn't reflect specifically on Asian-themed characters)? Remember the people who get upset about Vistani. . .never mind that Vistani were created to have a way for the traditional literary depictions of "gypsies" from fiction to show up in D&D without applying those stereotypes to any human characters, to distinguish that stereotypical literary "gypsies" weren't any actual human racial or ethnic group?</p><p></p><p>That's with racism alone, before you get into sexism, ableism, and every other "ism". Imagine them complaining your adventure is ableist because your dungeons aren't wheelchair accessible. Imagine them saying your campaign setting is misogynistic because the big bad villain is an evil Empress. </p><p></p><p>They can find a token excuse to allege bigotry in anything. Without a crystal clear standard that goes beyond WotC's own discretion, any kind of content clause in the new OGL is nothing more than a backdoor way to let WotC censor anything for any reason.</p><p></p><p>. . .and if you think they won't do that, and think they won't abuse that power, that's the same kind of thinking that had people thinking they wouldn't try to "de authorize" the OGL 1.0a. WotC cannot be trusted now, they've permanently broken that kind of trust.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="wingsandsword, post: 8900793, member: 14159"] The thing with the "racism" part is, that I've pointed out repeatedly, is that unless the conditions by which WotC can revoke a license for any kind of "bigoted" content is that it can be so open-ended that someone can find fault with anything. If it's purely at WotC's discretion. . .it's meaningless. WotC has already said, before the OGL debacle, that they were moving away from calling character races "races" and giving character races alignments all out of racism concerns. . .so using common gaming terminology and concepts from almost 50 years of D&D could be called "racist". One college banned the use of the word "field" in its curriculum, so there could be no "field tests" or "field offices". . .because slaves worked in fields and they were concerned the use of the word "field" by the school could be racially offensive ([URL]https://www.npr.org/2023/01/14/1148470571/usc-office-removes-field-from-curriculum-racist[/URL]) This editorial from 2020 argues that most of the tropes and conventions that underlie the entire fantasy genre are racist, that the fantasy genre as we know it is inherently racist. By the definitions of this editorial writer, almost any traditional D&D adventure or campaign setting would be "racist". ([URL="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/nov/03/racism-fantasy-fiction-role-playing-games"]It’s time for fantasy fiction and role-playing games to shed their racist history[/URL]) Then there's the amount of well established D&D content that some people complain about. Remember in 2020 when someone complained that the 1e Oriental Adventures was racist (and the reasons included PC races in that book having ability score penalties. . .which was normal in 1e and didn't reflect specifically on Asian-themed characters)? Remember the people who get upset about Vistani. . .never mind that Vistani were created to have a way for the traditional literary depictions of "gypsies" from fiction to show up in D&D without applying those stereotypes to any human characters, to distinguish that stereotypical literary "gypsies" weren't any actual human racial or ethnic group? That's with racism alone, before you get into sexism, ableism, and every other "ism". Imagine them complaining your adventure is ableist because your dungeons aren't wheelchair accessible. Imagine them saying your campaign setting is misogynistic because the big bad villain is an evil Empress. They can find a token excuse to allege bigotry in anything. Without a crystal clear standard that goes beyond WotC's own discretion, any kind of content clause in the new OGL is nothing more than a backdoor way to let WotC censor anything for any reason. . . .and if you think they won't do that, and think they won't abuse that power, that's the same kind of thinking that had people thinking they wouldn't try to "de authorize" the OGL 1.0a. WotC cannot be trusted now, they've permanently broken that kind of trust. [/QUOTE]
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