WotC Older D&D Books on DMs Guild Now Have A Disclaimer

If you go to any of the older WotC products on the Dungeon Master's Guild, they now have a new disclaimer very similar to that currently found at the start of Looney Tunes cartoons.

We recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website, does not reflect the values of the Dungeon & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

The wording is very similar to that found at the start of Looney Tunes cartoons.

Edit: Wizards has put out a statement on Twitter (click through to the full thread)

 

[Deset Gled]

I can't imagine that anyone who thinks OA is harmful would be satisfied with this.

15% of the Americans still refuse to wear seatbelts.

I think this was a perfect solution. They acknowledge the problem, preserve the history, and strive to do better in the future. I can't reasonably expect much more.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'm ok with this over trying to change a product from 30 years ago.
View attachment 123530

Oh my.

On the one hand, you have (among others) Frank Zappa, John Denver (!), and Dee Snider (!!) defending the rights of artists.

On the other hand, the officious busybodies who were doing it "for the children."

Same as it ever was.

I will leave with a portion of John "Country Roads" Denver's statement in 1985 at those hearings (and that are contemporaneous with OA!), which is as timely now as it was then-

"I am here to address the issue of a possible rating system in the Recording Industry, labeling records where excesses of explicit sex or graphic violence have occurred and, furthermore, references to drugs and alcohol or the occult are included in the lyrics. These hearings have been called to determine whether or not the Government should intervene to enforce this practice.

Mr. Chairman, this would approach censorship. May I be very clear that I am strongly opposed to censorship of any kind in our society, or anywhere else in the world.

I've had in my experience two encounters with th[is] sort of censorship. My song "Rocky Mountain High" was banned from many radio stations as a drug-related song.

This was obviously done by people who had never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains and also had never experienced the elation, the celebration of life, or the joy in living that one feels when he observes something as wondrous as the Perseides meteor shower, on a moonless and cloudless night, when there are so many stars that you have a shadow from the starlight, and you're out camping with your friends, your best friends, and introducing them to one of nature's most spectacular light shows for the very first time.

Obviously a clear case of misinterpretation.

Mr. Chairman, what assurance have I that any national panel to review my music would make any better judgment? ... Discipline and self-restraint, when practiced by an individual, a family, or a company is an effective way to deal with this issue. The same thing when forced on a people by their government or, worse, by a self-appointed watchdog of public morals, is suppression and will not be tolerated in a democratic society.

Mr. Chairman, the suppression of the people of a society begins, in my mind, with the censorship of the written or spoken word."


Anyway, I hope we can finally go back to making future products better, instead of trying to re-write history to our current standards.

 

[ZeshinX]

It's a solution that works as best it can, though it might perhaps be better to place that context description at the top of the product description, rather than the bottom so it's the first thing read (and more readily spotted), as opposed to the bottom of that significant amount of text.

Speaking for myself, it's not something I would necessarily see (or read), as I generally skim such text unless I have a very real interest in the product. I'll typically read the first few paragraphs in their entirety, then start skimming.

 

[jasper]

Hasbro is on a roll. They just announced that they are cooperating to ban a bunch of racist terms from competitive Scrabble play. Why that's taken until now I have no idea, but at least it's happening.

Money Grab. They release an official Scramble dictionary every few years. If you challenge a word and it not in the current dictionary it comes off the board. The last printing was 2018. So a new one will be out in 2021.

Amazon - The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, Sixth Ed. (Mass Market Paperback) Newest Edition: Merriam-Webster: 9780877795964: Books

The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, Sixth Ed. (Mass Market Paperback) Newest Edition [Merriam-Webster] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, Sixth Ed. (Mass Market Paperback) Newest Edition

www.amazon.com

 

[Fenris-77]

Money Grab. They release an official Scramble dictionary every few years. If you challenge a word and it not in the current dictionary it comes off the board. The last printing was 2018. So a new one will be out in 2021.

Amazon - The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, Sixth Ed. (Mass Market Paperback) Newest Edition: Merriam-Webster: 9780877795964: Books

The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, Sixth Ed. (Mass Market Paperback) Newest Edition [Merriam-Webster] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Official SCRABBLE Players Dictionary, Sixth Ed. (Mass Market Paperback) Newest Edition

www.amazon.com

Apparently it was in response to player request. Possibly also a money grab. Sometimes its wins all round.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Money Grab. They release an official Scramble dictionary every few years. If you challenge a word and it not in the current dictionary it comes off the board. The last printing was 2018. So a new one will be out in 2021.

I disagree. My understanding is that the offensive words were expunged from the official Scrabble dictionary in the 90s.

Because of objections from competitive players, there remained a competitive list of objectionable words (have to get that triple score!). That is what is being removed. So this is not about money.

There is a review of the issues here (Caution: Article Contains Offensive Language):

Should You Play a Slur in Scrabble? Players Are Having a Heated Debate.

A compromise struck in the 1990s has started to unravel.

slate.com

EDIT/ADDITION: How messed up is it that people were playing these terms in Scrabble? I know that at a certain high level, you stop viewing them as words qua words, but still.

 

[Fenris447]

This is a good solution. I'm all for preserving history. Without getting into the more important, real world analogue, we don't need to destroy things. But placing them in a proper context, whether that's a building or a disclaimer, is essential to ensuring they are viewed correctly by modern audiences. The most important thing is to not glorify viewpoints that we now know are immoral and/or destructive. This does a decent job of that.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Note that 'older' here applies to all pre-5E products, as far as I can tell.

 

[Morrus]

This is a good solution. I'm all for preserving history. Without getting into the more important, real world analogue, we don't need to destroy things. But placing them in a proper context, whether that's a building or a disclaimer, is essential to ensuring they are viewed correctly by modern audiences. The most important thing is to not glorify viewpoints that we now know are immoral and/or destructive. This does a decent job of that.

I don’t think “preserving history” is what they’re doing. I’d argue that preserving history is a noble pursuit which involves things like making a documentary or putting something in a museum, not selling PDF or PoD copies it. (Not that they have claimed that they’re preserving history).

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I don’t think “preserving history” is what they’re doing. I’d argue that preserving history is a noble pursuit which involves things like making a documentary or putting something in a museum, not selling PDF or PoD copies it. (Not that they have claimed that they’re preserving history).

The weird thing about history is that you never know that you're going to want something until after it's gone.

I am quite positive that the employees at the BBC from the 50s - 80s thought similarly to you; real history is a noble pursuit, not this silly little idiot box programming that we are doing. No one is going to care about watching these "videos" in the future.

We can just copy over these tapes.*

(Thankfully, for many programs, there were other copies that could be located; but for some, not so much).

I almost feel like it should be a song lyric .... you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.


*I just googled this to satisfy my curiosity, and found that "60-70% of ALL BBC PROGRAMMING produced between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s was deleted." That is a lot of history.