D&D 5E D&D's Inclusivity Language Alterations In Core Rules

In recent months, WotC has altered some of the text found in the original 5th Edition core rulebooks to accommodate D&D's ongoing move towards inclusivity. Many of these changes are reflected on D&D Beyond already--mainly small terminology alterations in descriptive text, rather than rules changes.

Teos Abadia (also known as Alphastream) has compiled a list of these changes. I've posted a very abbreviated, paraphrased version below, but please do check out his site for the full list and context.

• Savage foes changed to brutal, merciless, or ruthless.
• Barbarian hordes changed to invading hordes.
• References to civilized people and places removed.
• Madness or insanity removed or changed to other words like chaos.
• Usage of orcs as evil foes changed to other words like raiders.
• Terms like dim-witted and other synonyms of low intelligence raced with words like incurious.
• Language alterations surrounding gender.
• Fat removed or changed to big.
• Use of terms referring to slavery reduced or altered.
• Use of dark when referring to evil changed to words like vile or dangerous.

This is by no means the full list, and much more context can be found on Alphastream's blog post.

 

[Gradine]

In general I agree, but most attempts I see of making diverse and inclusive content are pretty shallow IMO. It's rather formulaic - take an existing work, replace straight white characters with diverse and inclusive characters, make a few mentions of racism or sexism and you've made a diverse and inclusive product.

That's not the only way to do it (and i'm sure not all are being done this way), but attempts like I just described are both prevalent and inherently less creative IMO. Do you agree?

I do not. I think we can all point to rather cynical and un-critical examples of this in action, but many of the examples I've seen in making material more diverse and inclusive have been thoughtful and inherently bring something much more interesting to and creative to the table. Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen are both excellent examples of introducing not just inclusivity but a burst of creativity to what had been becoming a fairly stale and repetitive Spider-man arc. And that's just speaking in the realm of adaptation; new IPs created with and for diverse casts/audiences are extraordinarily creative, much more so than recycled Sword & Sorcery tropes that were getting stale by the 80's.

Also - is creating content featuring straight white males for straight white males not diverse and inclusive?

In the context of Western (ie, North American/European/Australian) entertainment? No, that's pretty much the definition of a non-diverse and non-inclusive product. That doesn't make it necessarily bad (my partner and I recently re-watched The Big Short, a very great and fun movie that nonetheless features almost entirely straight white males and definitely for straight white males (if the Margot Robbie and stripper scenes are any indication)), but it does make it, rather definitionally, not diverse and inclusive.

I think answering that question would be considered not diverse or inclusive and thus be against the forum rules. I would love to answer, but I'll respect the rules as I understand them.

Which I think is rather the point

 

[Reynard]

If I or someone there expressed an issue with it, or if it was against the dress code, I would ask the employee in question to remove it (it's pretty impractical in any case). If the guy decides to be a jerk about it, he would be disciplined. That seems respectful to me. What I would not do is assume someone will be offended by it before an issue becomes apparent.

So, just to be clear, you are going to allow a thing that is likely to cause offense to continue to happen, just in case it doesn't, even though you are running a business in which you want to make people happy, not offended?

Okay.

 

[Corinnguard]

Each of the city states in the Dark Sun setting was modeled after a particular ancient RL culture. So I don't think one M:TG setting is going to have anything similar to a Dark Sun-like setting. Maybe several?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, just to be clear, you are going to allow a thing that is likely to cause offense to continue to happen, just in case it doesn't, even though you are running a business in which you want to make people happy, not offended?

Okay.

Is that likely to cause offense? I honestly don't know.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Is that likely to cause offense? I honestly don't know.

I would say that wearing a piece of clothing or costume meant to portray someone else's culture in a mocking or cartoonist way is definitely demeaning.

 

[Morrus]

If I or someone there expressed an issue with it, or if it was against the dress code, I would ask the employee in question to remove it (it's pretty impractical in any case). If the guy decides to be a jerk about it, he would be disciplined. That seems respectful to me. What I would not do is assume someone will be offended by it before an issue becomes apparent.

You have a tendency to assign motives to WotC when you have no way of knowing what those motives are. You keep doing it over and over again in many, many threads. It’s your thing. It’s what you are known for.

In this case “assuming someone will
be offended by it”.

It really is literally inconceivable to you that somebody might believe differently to you, and be acting the way they feel is right, isn’t it? There has to be an ulterior motive, because a honest viewpoint different to yours simply isn’t possible. They must be kowtowing to Twitter or something. They can’t possibly believe what they say they do.

Of course we’ve been here a hundred times before. There’s no changing your mind about that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Maybe. I mean, if America's biggest text book manufacturers were being pressured by a state level government to erase slavery as the cause of the American Civil War (just by way of random example) then that might qualify.

I'm not sure what that has to do with D&D though.

These kinds of text book changes are obviously Orwellian. But so too is altering an RPG book published in 2014 to avoid looking like it used language that some in 2023 might find offensive. It is certainly a lot less nefarious though and more in the realm of troubling. Like I said, gaming is fairly insignificant. So it is only important because we are gamers and it probably has very little impact on the wider culture.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think the weird bizarro thing here is why are people telling a publisher what they’re not allowed to write and how they are not allowed to express themselves then claiming they’re the ones being suppressed?

It’s mind-boggling how censors think they’re the censored.

Stop telling others what to write.

I think commenting isn't censoring, nor is it telling people what to write. I do agree it can become that (if we were to call for a boycott campaign or try to cancel posters who didn't agree with us on social media, then we'd be getting into that realm). But I think it is fair for people to comment on changes like this occurring in the biggest RPG in the industry.

 

[AstroCat]

Racist or not, it's still difficult not to find your characterization of those who enjoy current D&D products as offensive. Do all of us here on this board of that persuasion have "the least interesting, challenging or imaginative stance possible"?

I don't know if others on this particular forum feel that the current wotc neo-5e d&d is awesome or lame, or somewhere in between. I think the aggressive changes over the last 2-3 years or so have lead to a vastly more boring, uninspiring and uninteresting version of d&d, I also feel the content, mechanical and art quality has taken a steep dive as well, that's my take, not meant to be anyone else's.

If me not liking it is offensive to someone then there is not much I can do about it, I guess if I could pretend I liked it or try and convince them the older version was better, but really that's silly. I'm not offended if you don't like the 2014 - around 2020 versions of 5e d&d, I think those were the best years of 5e, when Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes were wiped out/replaced that was a real bummer as well, so much fun lore officially dead. So yeah, I'm not on the offense, just enjoying content I find interesting and inspiring for game time.

 

[Reynard]

These kinds of text book changes are obviously Orwellian. But so too is altering an RPG book published in 2014 to avoid looking like it used language that some in 2023 might find offensive. It is certainly a lot less nefarious though and more in the realm of troubling. Like I said, gaming is fairly insignificant. So it is only important because we are gamers and it probably has very little impact on the wider culture.

You are suggesting that these things are different in scale but not kind and I would say that it is on its face difference in kind. One involves a state actor and involves an educational history text. The other involves a private corporation and an entertainment text. "Orwellian" cannot apply to the latter because its very definition requires both a state actor and rewriting history education.

besides all that, WotC is not pretending these things never happened (also required for Orwellian) -- it is just deciding to do better. If it was truly Orwellian, we wouldn't be talking about it because we would not even know.