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

[The Myopic Sniper]

One thing that does come to mind is that maybe WOTC needs to playtest lore and concept art in their Unearthed Arcana as well as mechanics. It is better to cause a Twitter storm over playtest content that can be changed than something that is already released.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

One thing that does come to mind is that maybe WOTC needs to playtest lore and concept art in their Unearthed Arcana as well as mechanics. It is better to cause a Twitter storm over playtest content that can be changed than something that is already released.

They did. They "playtested" lore for the Hadozee in the Travelers of the Multiverse UA. It didn't make any mention of them previously being slaves or commonly being minstrels.

 

[CleverNickName]

Book doesn't seem to have had one, so there you go.

But surely Wizards of the Coast has a CS editor on staff, right? someone to take a look at everything pubic-facing before it gets published? I mean, my company has a whole team of them, and we're engineers. Surely a publishing company would have at least one? Right?

 

[Retreater]

This seems pretty egregious.

 

[Reynard]

This seems pretty egregious.

You know, I was ready for some hint of racism that might have been blown out of proportion, but -- oof. Like, really, that's gross.

 

[Parmandur]

But surely Wizards of the Coast has a CS editor on staff, right? someone to take a look at everything pubic-facing before it gets published? I mean, my company has a whole team of them, and we're engineers. Surely a publishing company would have at least one? Right?

You would think so, but no, history suggests otherwise. WotC doesn't have a history of active belligerent racism, but they have a strong history of self-assured "but we're nice guys, not racists!" lack of introspection. Which really bites them in the butter when they try to bring forward older Edition material, particularly.

 

[Cadence]

I'm curious what the artist Wuzyk used for a model/inspiration for the left most of her three Hadozee figures - and if she was told to make one a bard. (The instrument and hat seem fairly common for a bard - checking PHB and Google respectively).

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

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.

 

[Burnside]

You know, I was ready for some hint of racism that might have been blown out of proportion, but -- oof. Like, really, that's gross.

Yeah. I admit my first instinct was “let’s everybody calm down” but then I took a look at it and…yikes.

 

[Steampunkette]

I'm curious what the artist Wuzyk used for a model/inspiration for the left most of her three Hadozee figures - and if she was told to make one a bard. (The instrument and hat seem fairly common for a bard - checking PHB and Google respectively).

I mean... yeah... But it's also the -same- instrument in both pictures. Just with a shorter neck for the Hadozee.