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

[Seramus]

I think the problem there was that it's Spelljammer and they wanted to reference Planet of the Apes. If the Rats of NIMH had had their own planet (Earth all along, or otherwise) we might be looking at a ratfolk race.

Yeah, Planet of the Apes seems like the inspirational intent, but they tried to file off the serial numbers and stepped on ten rakes instead.

Also, possibly the Shofixti and the Yehat from Star Control 2.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

There was a definite push to make evil races inherently, irredeemably evil in early 5e.

I distinctly remember pre-MToF where a promo video explained that dwarves and orcs act largely the same no matter where they are because of the influence of their creator gods. IIRC Eberron was explained as being an exception because it blocks the influence of Moradin and Gruumsh.

This idea was evident in lesser extent in 4E, where the default lore stated that the creator god of the humans being gone and forgotten was part of the reason humans are so diverse in terms of appearance and behavior compared to dwarves and such.

 

[Charlaquin]

Saying they are aiming to be more diverse does not mean they will then hit the target always and forever. It has to be a process, and there will be some stumbles. Instant perfection isn't something we should expect.

Sure, but noticing this is a pretty low bar. Hiring sensitivity readers should be one of the very first steps any company aiming to be more diverse and inclusive takes.

I'm not even comfortable with the implication that absolutely any person of color who saw the depiction would have noted it.

I was using a bit of hyperbole there for rhetorical effect. But, fair point, I concede that some people of color may not have noticed this.

 

[Umbran]

I was using a bit of hyperbole there for rhetorical effect. But, fair point, I concede that some people of color may not have noticed this.

Thank you. Folks should probably avoid using hyperbole on sensitive topics.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The only real link to slavery is that a powerful wizard created, or more specifically uplifted, them with the intention of them being servants and do his bidding. Exchange "powerful wizard" with "god" and you have the creation myth of basically every species in D&D. And considering how D&D deities behave there is not much difference between deity and (very) powerful wizard.
So why is wizard uplifting them slavery and god creating a species is not?

The wizard found an existing species of monkeys and turned them into people that he then enslaved and was planning on turning into an army that he could sell. Way different than Moradin, Corellon, or Gruumsh making their own children from nothing. If the species was already existing and the gods just turned them into "people", that would be a different conversation. But you're intentionally mischaracterizing the gods of D&D's base lore.

As for what I equate. I equate a stereotypical halfling bard to a stereotypical hadozee bard. If you only see the hadozee picture and the minstrel show one then yes, you would see a connection. But that completely ignores how bards are portrayed in D&D. With lutes, colourful clothes and prancing around. Just like the hadozee does.

Because all you need to see are those two images. That's all you need to see a problematic connection. If something looks racist, it looks racist, regardless of other Minstrel art in 5e.

No idea where you get the white savior from. Not only were the hadozee not passive in the backstory we also do not know the skin color of the wizard and the apprentices. You are assigning the roles and skin colors based on what narrative you want to see.

The story being similar to the white savior story does not require the skin color of those invoking the white savior role in the story to be white. It's a "these people saved this previously-monkey race from slavery" story.

So maybe instead of automatically equating hadozee with real world people and assigning everyone in the story a skin color to fit a certain narrative, how about taking a step back and seeing the hadozee from a fantasy/D&D angle without forcing a specific narrative on them? A fantasy animal inspired species which exists everywhere in fantasy and scifi books and stories which have a rather common trope background, for scifi, and are using the common D&D classes, including the prancing bard?

It being a common trope does not make it better. There are plenty of common tropes/stories that are racist. If the intersection of these two stories make it look racist, it's still a problem. Intent, context, and other stories don't matter. Only the subject does. If something looks racist, that's a problem.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I must have missed all those minstrel accusations when the core book with this halfling image came out.

Sometimes someone with a lute is just a iconic bard.

Interesting piece to bring up. That almost certainly the most hideous piece of art in the 5e PHB. I've taught D&D to kids who saw it and immediately ruled out being a halfling because of that piece of art.

To me, at least, the tiny feet, especially with the giant head, are the offputting part, and I would theorize that the feet are small (as in shorter than her mouth is wide) to emphasize how legally distinct halflings are from the big-footed hobbits (not actually big-footed in Tolkien's text, but the art, for reasons of emphasis, and, the movies, for reasons of hidden shoes, have made them that way).

Which is all to say that if a cultural sensitivity department had the sort of pull that the legal department or the marketing department do they probably wouldn't be in this mess. And yes it would be a bummer for the artists and writers who occasionally got their work rejected for something not remotely on their radar and often not really touching on the inherent quality of the work, but that's already the nature of creating creative things for a corporation for pay. You already, sometimes, are mandated to put hideous tiny feet on your halflings because legal says so.

 

[Steampunkette]

Hmmm... how would I have written the Hadozee to avoid racist implications...

1) Flying Squirrels rather than Monkeys. I don't like the idea of doing a monkey race 'cause I heard monkey-related slurs a -lot- as a kid in Georgia.
2) Skip the "Enlightened Animal" angle. We don't need that narrative for elves and dwarves so why do we need it for these guys?
3) Skip the slavery angle.

With that in mind... what story would I tell with the Flying Squirrel people? One of oppression and violence but in a less "The society you're in is disgusting" and more in the sense of "Constant Conquest".

Probably go with a background narrative of the Squirrels losing their homeworld to conquest and being attacked by a cannibalistic force that finds their flesh particularly nice. Maybe Space Gnolls?

Core themes: Displaced peoples, fleeing from a genocidal force that allegorically uses physical consumption in place of destruction of cultural identity, found family and adventure as a means to gain the power to fight back...

Works by connecting to most real-world situations of colonizing and ethnic cleansing/violence. Particularly Native Americans, Palestinians, and Romani without playing into tropes about any of the three groups or hanging on stereotypes. Also plays into the "Predator/Prey" dynamic of squirrels and carnivorous animals.

Gives a lot to hang storybits onto without direct association.

 

[Ixal]

The wizard found an existing species of monkeys and turned them into people that he then enslaved and was planning on turning into an army that he could sell. Way different than Moradin, Corellon, or Gruumsh making their own children from nothing. If the species was already existing and the gods just turned them into "people", that would be a different conversation. But you're intentionally mischaracterizing the gods of D&D's base lore.

No, not really. The gods created a species, feed of their faith and often direct their race to do their bidding. So that would make everyone else more of a slave than the hadozee who managed to get rid of their creator before he could make them do anything.

Because all you need to see are those two images. That's all you need to see a problematic connection. If something looks racist, it looks racist, regardless of other Minstrel art in 5e.

No, you need to see more than just the two pictures, because when you only show those two and intentionally withhold other pictures of prancing bards you are intentionally forcing people to make the connection you want them to make.
Instead show people the picture of the hadozee, the one from the minstrel show, the halfling bard and for example the dragonborn troubadour.

The story being similar to the white savior story does not require the skin color of those invoking the white savior role in the story to be white. It's a "these people saved this previously-monkey race from slavery".

So you now can't rescue people because you are then a "white saviour"? That is quite a stretch to do in order to fit this into a specific narrative. Was Han a white saviour to Leia? And later was she a white saviour to Han and Luke to her? Not to mention that white saviour also implies that the non-whites are passive and did not help themselves which the story leaves open as it is unclear who killed the wizard.
You are making quite a lot of assumptions to fit the hadozee into the white saviour narrative.

It being a common trope does not make it better. There are plenty of common tropes/stories that are racist. If the intersection of these two stories make it look racist, it's still a problem. Intent, context, and other stories don't matter. Only the subject does. If something looks racist, that's a problem.

And yet strangely no one complained before when in a piece of fiction a species, including apes or even humans, were uplifted with the intention to be slaves, but then overthrow the slaver. Most of the time this story was even seen as empowering but here you only focus on the "were intended to be slaves" part which you equate to being slaves and not on the fled and killed their slaver part. Why? Maybe you should ask yourself why you want to squeeze the hadozee into a specific narrative and why in order you do so you assign the hadozee attributes to make them fit the narrative which they do not have when you look at them neutrally while leaving out things that do not fit.

Likewise SciFi and fantasy is full of animal people. Especially older scifi used anthromorphic animals all the time from bird people, tigers, lions, ect. While more hard scifi often had uplifted monkeys because uplifting them is the easiest from a scifi science point of view (or doplhins).
Likewise animal and even monkey people are not uncommon in fantasy either. We just had Ardlings and there are several monkey people in mythology which fantasy also adapted. Yet only here this is now a problem and fantasy monkey people are equated to real life people.

 

[the Jester]

You mean, once people told you what you have to see.

That's kind of condescending. Perhaps rethink your approach, especially in a thread on a topic like this.

 

[weremacaque]

Wow. I noticed this on twitter and at first I thought it was just bad form to have a race that has a slavery narrative. But looking at parts of the description people are posting...wow. This is Nu-TSR level stuff...

Since monkeys are my favorite animal, I've played homebrewed monkey characters before. The thing that made it all work is that I wasn't using stereotypes that would seem like stereotypes about black people, like them being loud and "whooping" (Also, whooping at the table is annoying as hell) or making them sound black when they talk.

It's also pretty crappy to say every one of them isn't a philosopher and only cares about "doing good and happy work." It's like they're almost justifying the slave background by making them build character from it.