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)

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

It looks like this thread has outlived its usefulness. Continued head-butting isn't constructive. So, please be prepared for this thread to close in the near future.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You don't see a problem - doesn't mean someone else doesn't. That's my point here - there will always be that someone else, even if you don't act out of malice and try not to be offensive.

You know what, you are right. Someone will always be offended. Now they are offended, in the future they will be offended, in the far future they will be offended. .

In fact, no matter what you do some one, somewhere will be offended.

So, the correct solution is to never try to improve and constantly wallow in the status quo, claiming that "well, it is bad, but even if we change it people won't be happy, so why bother."

Because that is exactly where that argument leads me, if the point is that people will always be offended, no matter what, then you are telling me that you don't want to try and improve anything

 

[CleverNickName]

Since the thread is closing soon, I'll summarize my thoughts and opinions.

• There is, and has been, implied and explicit racism in D&D. Nobody can argue that (but they will certainly try).
• WotC is working to address it. Some think this is good, others think this is bad.
• I think Wotc is doing the right thing.
• I want them to keep working to address it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Bedrockgames

I assume you are not denying that there are quotes describing orcs that are almost identical to the ones used by racists and eugenicists to justify real life repression and killing?

In that case are you saying that players in the real life groups that were described that way by racists and eugenicists shouldn't find it cringe-worthy when they see humanoid races that can be PCs, breed with humans, and have been shown to have a variety of alignments in different products, are described using that same language?

I am not going to rehash the argument here, but I don't think you are fairly framing the debate at all with this post. It isn't this binary. And it is a bit like asking "Tell me sire, when did you stop beating your wife". There were lots of arguments and rebuttals in that thread, including closer examination of the texts describing orcs, where people didn't always agree the language was the same (granted there is a lot of different text describing orcs, so some seemed more to fit, some didn't). There were also closer examinations of the words of Tolkein himself and disputes over what particular phrasing might have meant, as well as a closer examination of orcs and their evolution in pop culture and RPGs over the decades. It was a big discussion. A lot of people looked at the same text and disagreed over what it meant. A lot of people looked at the idea of an evil race in a fantasy world and disagreed over what it meant. That is what happens in these discussion. However I think there is maybe something to the idea that the side that can't even accept people that disagree with them are anything but horrible people who just want others to suffer, might not be as confident in their position as their words suggest. I am not saying that is the case here, but there is an extreme overreaction against anyone who doesn't find orcs racist, who doesn't believe they are indulging in pro-colonialist tropes, who doesn't have an issue with evil races in a game. And it isn't like you won the debate. When I say a lot of people disagree with you: I mean ALOT. Outside of the internet this argument that orcs are racist is not taken seriously at all in my experience. It only has currency in narrow circles.

 

[Derren]

Edit: Not worth it. When people want to see racism to prove they are the good guys they will see racism everywhere and nothing can convince them otherwise.

 

[Cadence]

I am not going to rehash the argument here, but I don't think you are fairly framing the debate at all with this post. It isn't this binary.

I was intentionally trying to dodge the question of "orcs are racist" because I'm not even sure what most people mean by that or that it matters. Similarly I was trying to avoid the meaning of the text (which is hard to know) and the intentions of the authors (which is hard to know and feels relative to the mass of humanity in their own times to some extent). I was literally going for the two things I put there. I mean, we have the side-by-side quotes. And I can imagine someone reasonable feeling uncomfortable about that. I would be kind of curious what arguments anyone could have about the quotes not lining up, or why it was totally unreasonable for a sizable number of folks to be disturbed by them after seeing it. If that is accepted, the solution to me seems to be what has been suggested many times and simply make it clearer that alignment of humanoids is more open and not as bizarre as the places with good orcs seem relative to the monster description block.

 

[Windjammer]

This isn't directed to the following poster alone but I'd hope the forum could pick it up as a future policy.

Evidence has been REPEATEDLY presented. I'm sick and tired of doing other people's research for them. Don't believe me? Start hunting back through the threads. Or just wait, I'm sure enough people will waffle on about there not being evidence that @Doug McCrae will post it again.

For future reference: there's posters like myself who don't post on Enworld day in, day out, and we'd benefit if instead of being told the references are out there, regular posters could link to them, make their point, and move on. I saw a similar point made yesterday to dannyalc. (sorry can't remember full spelling) of having made points that established claim X conclusively. I then spent 45 minutes reading old posts and couldn't find them, because they were buried in threads like these where a discussion goes on for 30+ pages and it's unclear which point is related to what. I then simply gave up.

What I'm saying is that even if you think the person you're replying to should have the exact post in mind you're referencing, you're writing for an audience of more than one. Kindly consider posting accordingly. Thank you.

 

[Cadence]

Edit: Not worth it. When people want to see racism to prove they are the good guys they will see racism everywhere and nothing can convince them otherwise.

Seems less disturbing than when folks (say the kind one would find a bunch of in the comment sections of any American newspapers FB feed) don't believe there's any racism in America anymore except against white folks, or that there's no point in trying to be polite in the words one picks.

But yes, this batch of five or six threads does seem to have gone past the point of convincing anyone anything!

As an aside, I always thought it would be neat to have a browser extension people could use where it would give a machine-learning-ai-whatnot-algorithm classification percentage for the proposed post relative to the Daily Stormer/4chanpol and other extreme-things-in-other-directions vs. things not that far out, just to give everyone an idea of what there words look like.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Seems less disturbing than when folks (say the kind one would find a bunch of in the comment sections of any American newspapers FB feed) don't believe there's any racism in America anymore except against white folks, or that there's no point in trying to be polite in the words one picks.

But yes, this batch of five or six threads does seem to have gone past the point of convincing anyone anything!

As an aside, I always thought it would be neat to have a browser extension people could use where it would give a machine-learning-ai-whatnot-algorithm classification percentage for the proposed post relative to the Daily Stormer/4chanpol and other extreme-things-in-other-directions vs. things not that far out, just to give everyone an idea of what there words look like.

You are not saying what he thinks you are saying, and he is not saying what you think he is saying.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:

Per previous note - thread closed.