D&D 5E D&D Celebration Schedule Announced

WotC has posted the schedule for it's D&D Celebration online event taking place from 18th-20th September.

The event includes a range of panels and live games, including sessions on Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, mental health, inclusive dungeon design, and including asian stories in your games. These include people such as Daniel Kwan (Asians Represent) and Sara Thompson (The Combat Wheelchair), who have both spoken publicly about problematic issues in D&D.

 

[Grimstaff]

Unless someone is coming to confiscate your Players Handbook, you can just ignore those rules.

You say that as if it’s inconceivable. My 1e players handbook was confiscated by a teacher in the 80’s for having “satanic” images.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You say that as if it’s inconceivable. My 1e players handbook was confiscated by a teacher in the 80’s for having “satanic” images.

I doubt your Player's Handbook will be taken because you're using a certain set of rules, though.

 

[Zander]

With regards to the D&D races, I suspect that if the game had called them 'folks' or some other term from the beginning (I find 'species' too scientific for a fantasy game), there wouldn't be a move to homogenise them. It's only because 'race' is such a politically charged term in the real world that differences between the fantasy ones are deemed unacceptable. When societies fail to make distinctions between reality and fantasy, the outcome is rarely good; witness, for example, the satanic panic related to D&D of the 1980s when certain religious groups denounced the game for having magic and fantasy creatures.

On the matter of OA, I only have the 1E one and don't currently have access to it, but from memory, it was most certainly not racist. Racism is inherently malicious. Was it Gygax, Cook and Marcela-Froideval's intention to be malicious? No, very obviously not. In fact, they were celebrating Asian cultures, history and mythologies. More valid questions would be did they then (1985) or do they now cause offence however unintentionally? Offence is subjective. I remember when it was released and am not aware that anyone at the time found it offensive. Since then, being the offended party has given one the moral high ground and often also publicity, so it has become difficult to determine when offence is genuine, when it isn't or when it's exaggerated. Would a 'reasonable person' to use the jurisprudence term find the 1E OA offensive? No, I don't think so. It may conflate quite diverse cultures but as has already been pointed out in this thread, so does D&D more broadly. Your dwarf (Norse) character swooping in on a flying carpet (Arabic, Persian and Russian) with a sword of sharpness (English) to defeat a clay golem (Jewish) followed by a gorgon (Greek) and a tarrasque (French) is no less syncretic than anything found in OA.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Lineage is right to replace "race". Isn't it?

Maybe there were some mistakes with OA but not bad intentions. Please, It was 35 years ago, enough time to prescibe lots of more serious crimes. If they are offended I can also feel bothered about the trope of Spanish conquerors, the vampires from Ixalan settin, or worse, the red paladins from Netflix's Curse serie. This last really was produced with hostile intentions. We can't be a bunch of hypocrites with double standard.

Some times I suspect we are going to suffer a new satanic panic, but don't worry, this time will not affect D&D, nor videogames as Warcraft, but the targets will be others.

I may bet WotC wants to publish its own version of "Play Manga d20", but different strategies for Japanese, Chinese-speaker, Korean and other Asian markets. Hasbro is willing to work and cooperate with Asian companies. Ones open doors for the others, and Hasbro would help to introduce Asian franchises, not only manga-anime but manhua-donghua and manwha-hangu aeni, or videogames. Even Hasbro could dare to relaunch the failed line of toys "Ninja Warriors: Enemies of Evil".

 

[Marandahir]

Please compare 5e phb with editions before. The designers of 5e already did a great job of doing no sexist pictures and having a very diverse race/class section. Of course you always can do better and sometimes you miss something (like the word androgynous), which the designers of 5e corrected fast when they were pointed at it.
WotC right now is trying to do a good Job of trying to include everyone, but naturally you sometimes miss the mark.
And it is good that you complain if you are personally hurt by something. But you also need to be reasonable about it and not try to change the past. It is the present and future that counts. And it is a good thing that WotC invites critical persons to their panels and allows them to speak about missteps in the past. And it is important that they do their best to not repeat those errors. And probably 10 years in the future you will find bad mistakes in things you think are well done today.

They have done a better job with 5e - though hardly "great" by any means. And they've only gotten this far because people who responded to the playtests said it was extremely important to them, and that it could make or break sales.

 

[marv]

With regards to the D&D races, I suspect that if the game had called them 'folks' or some other term from the beginning (I find 'species' too scientific for a fantasy game), there wouldn't be a move to homogenise them. It's only because 'race' is such a politically charged term in the real world that differences between the fantasy ones are deemed unacceptable. When societies fail to make distinctions between reality and fantasy, the outcome is rarely good; witness, for example, the satanic panic related to D&D of the 1980s when certain religious groups denounced the game for having magic and fantasy creatures.

On the matter of OA, I only have the 1E one and don't currently have access to it, but from memory, it was most certainly not racist. Racism is inherently malicious. Was it Gygax, Cook and Marcela-Froideval's intention to be malicious? No, very obviously not. In fact, they were celebrating Asian cultures, history and mythologies. More valid questions would be did they then (1985) or do they now cause offence however unintentionally? Offence is subjective. I remember when it was released and am not aware that anyone at the time found it offensive. Since then, being the offended party has given one the moral high ground and often also publicity, so it has become difficult to determine when offence is genuine, when it isn't or when it's exaggerated. Would a 'reasonable person' to use the jurisprudence term find the 1E OA offensive? No, I don't think so. It may conflate quite diverse cultures but as has already been pointed out in this thread, so does D&D more broadly. Your dwarf (Norse) character swooping in on a flying carpet (Arabic, Persian and Russian) with a sword of sharpness (English) to defeat a clay golem (Jewish) followed by a gorgon (Greek) and a tarrasque (French) is no less syncretic than anything found in OA.

You make some excellent points. It’s obvious in rereading my 1E PH and 1E DMG that the term race was picked arbitrarily to classify a playable “monster” or “humanoid”. Nowhere is there even a definition in those books of what Race means. It was an unfortunate choice because players newer to the game will logically pull in the societal definition of the word, which is super problematic and offensive.

It’s unfortunate that WoTC didn’t grok that when they developed 5E. I think you are right, we wouldn’t even be talking about Race in D&D if they had. I was relieved when Paizo switched to Ancestry with PF2.

I don’t see any references to
race in OD&D.

 

[Rikka66]

If they are offended I can also feel bothered about the trope of Spanish conquerors, the vampires from Ixalan settin, or worse, the red paladins from Netflix's Curse serie.

You have the right to take issue with these treatments of elements of your heritage if you feel they are problematic. But the fact that you don't see an issue, or that you do and choose not to take action about it, does not mean others can't do so in their own circumstances.

 

[marv]

You have right to take issue with these treatments with elements of your heritage if you feel they are problematic. But the fact that you don't see an issue, or that you do and choose not to take action about it, does not mean others can't do so in their own circumstances.

Agreed. Comfort at the table is everything. A source book can culturally get everything right. But source books are just tools, used by the DM/GM. Respect and inclusion is in the hands of the game master (and fellow players).

 

[Andorv]

Im so old i remember when people played this game to escape to a fantasy world so we didnt have to argue about silly stuff like all orcs being evil. Who knew the real world would become the fantasy setting.

 

[Azzy]

I would love to see a panel with these folks, Zeb Cook, James Wyatt, and Jeff Grubb getting into the nitty gritty about the background of these works and ways for the hobby to move forwards.

I'd like that. I agree that the OA books are not the best look, to say the least, but I'm pretty sure that this is because of ingorance and and ingrained idead inforrmed by stereotypes, any malicious intent. I know James Wyatt's intention, from interacting with him on the D&D boards, was to to be respectful and to inclue more non-Japanese inspired material. Perhaps his intentions were hamstrung by being too beholden to what was in the the 1e OA and too Rokugan being the default setting of the book. Likewise, Zeb Cook comes off more as a Japanophile fanboy than anything else and had good intentions. Good intentions, of course, don't always result in good results (as is imminently evident in OA), though, and we should give bad results a pass just because the intentions were good (though we shouldn't be too unkind to the authors that had good intentions). I'm sure, if they could redo things in a more modern take, they would be better informed and do better (heck, Zeb even completely rewrote the Wu Jen class in Dragon magazine during 2e's run—I forget which issue, though).