D&D General New WOTC racism allegations regarding Hadozee and Spelljammer

[Benjamin Olson]

Sounds to me like this is just people looking for something to complain about.

It's usually people looking for something to complain about who find these things first. It's often the semi-professional complainer class who proclaim their complaints the loudest. That doesn't mean there is no problem.

Someone, somewhere was going to complain about any simian race, but if WotC had made a little effort to distance them from anything that might evoke Africans or historic racist portrayals thereof there would be no there there and the rest of the world would move on and not listen to that person.

Here there are some theres there. I don't think they were remotely intentional. I think they are a combination of random chance and the racism embedded in certain existing tropes they were, unwittingly, drawing upon. But, Twitter storm-in-a-teacup du-jour aside, hyperbolist denouncers aside, many perfectly reasonable people are going to be uncomfortable playing what should have been a fun new race because they weren't careful what they evoked with the pictures and lore.

 

[Mecheon]

(and the OneD&D playtest that does the same thing for Dwarves)

Honestly, this I don't see being too bad given Tremorsense is, Tremorsense. You've just got a connection to the earth itself due to dwarves being, dwarves, and taht's just their magical thing. Probably not something they all use, but I don't see it being too bad. Certainly a neater way to handle that sort of connection than D&D's historic "The ability to detect very slight inclines"

Let's just say "there are plenty of noncontroversial animals, choose one or a hundred of those."

I'd argue there's two easy ways to get monkey people to work. One way is Vanara, which is just an easy grab from mythology. The other is the Monkey King, as everyone loves Sun Wukong

 

[Remathilis]

WotC does have a long history stepping in it with racial issues. They have gotten somewhat better, by and large, but there's always something.

Fantasy and Sci-fi are absolutely LOADED with these kinds of minefields now. I can't imagine even with sufficient sensitivity readers; they could manage to navigate the current standards.

 

[darjr]

Seems to me the Hadozee should have been left to the dustbin of history.

Actually, I'm starting to think @Micah Sweet 's idea is solid: Start Fresh with all lore. New settings, new origins, new everything. The past is too loaded with baggage.

I think that was Kendos point when they pointed out the wiki entries.

 

[the Jester]

I mean... this is all there. It's pretty terrible. I'm less inclined to believe it was intentional in any sense, but I do think that it's a product of unconscious bias.

I don't know about bias, per se, but am more inclined to think it's a matter of people doing the work while being oblivious to the implications of it.

So here's the thing: when you've got yourself a brand-new monkey/ape-like race for your TTRPG game, you should probably avoid, at all costs, any unfavorable comparisons to african-descended peoples. You know, like... instances of slavery or minstrelsy.

Especially as it wasn't part of the old lore of the race. Or of their Yazirian predecessors, as far as I can recall.

 

[the Jester]

As far as I can tell, the slavery thing is all new lore. I'm not sure what the person that wrote that thought it added.

Yeah, given how much they've been stripping lore out of creatures in 5e, I think it's weird that when they do decide to add some new stuff in, it's just instantly sooo problematic.

 

[Orius]

I thought WotC had sensitivity consultants or some such? So how the hell did that hadozee with the lute slip by them? I can see the potential nods to blackface in it, and I seldom take these complaints seriously, so any such consultants were clearly asleep on the job.

Ah yes, the joy of ignoring old lore. Celebrate the tossing of old lore because of all of its alleged insensitivity, only to make new crap that is openly worse. Good job, WotC.

I've never player Star Frontiers and I'm not familiar with it, but the yazirian on the old Star Frontiers cover doesn't look like anything racist to me. The yazirians were remaned hadozee in the original Spelljammer material which had a bunch of SF stuff reskinned for D&D. Nothing there about slavery. All I know there is their MC entry which described them as mercenaries and sailors who often work with elves. It also said that elves didn't consider them equal, but these ARE 2e elves, and space elves no less, so they're elitist pricks to everyone (see also: Complete Book of Elves). Stormwrack just portrays them as being curious with a strong element of wanderlust and as enjoying sailing.

So why was there the need to turn them into a slave race with an illustration that leans heavily into minstrel show imagery?

So yeah as someone who isn't happy about all the old stuff being tarred and feathered as racist, and being tossed to the curb for the production of new material, I'm feeling king of spitefully smug about WotC stumbling into a sensitivity issue of their own bloody accord.

And if you're going to avoid any sort of ape races, you might as well just toss out humans too since scientifically we're ALL apes, no matter what some people want to think.

 

[Remathilis]

I think that was Kendos point when they pointed out the wiki entries.

Which to me says "you can never escape the past, no matter how you try." Orcs and drow and other races similar to them are always going to be viewed as racist, no matter how much you scrub the lore.

 

[Ixal]

Oh no, a "alien race uplifts someone else to be its servants" story which is featured in basically half the sci-fi books out there and a very common trope (often featuring apes or even humanity as a whole).
I agree with cbwjm, people are just looking for something to be offended.

Fantasy and Sci-fi are absolutely LOADED with these kinds of minefields now. I can't imagine even with sufficient sensitivity readers; they could manage to navigate the current standards.

Because there are no standards and whatever is thought to be a standard changes as soon as someone feels he needs more attention on twitter.

 

[Alzrius]

Yeah, now you mention that, I seem to remember one of the preview videos featured Perkins saying there was a deliberate reference to Planet of the Apes hidden somewhere.

That was more Jeremy Crawford (right around 2:03).