D&D General PETITION: Acknowledge Hasbro's hurtful content (Black orcs, Asian yellow orcs, Native American red orcs)—through an Amendatory Bundle [+ thread]

[SAVeira]

The novels were god awful. The authors weren't given much in the way of source material and the stories were just summaries of the setting.

What hurt Mystara was the death of becmi. It was still selling, bur management only wanted one line. And Buck Rogers. The 2nd edition Mystara was all gimmick. Every module was a boxed set with a CD attached.

There was no time allowed for proofing, and it showed. Red Steel's DM and Player's book contradicted each other on the spread of the curse by a large margin. The almanacs were a rush job where it was about 70% cut and paste. They kicked the story ahead 12 years and didn't bother changing the ages of any of the characters. The author openly admits that.

TSR shot themselves in the foot with poor products nobody wanted that needlessly increased the cost to produce them. Except the arcade game.

That was some mismanagement by TSR. I was working in a bookstore at the time and any novel from TSR flew off the shelves at least the fantasy ones. The Buck Rogers line just rotted on the bookshelves. A good line of Mystara novels could generated another successful revenue stream. Very sad.

 

[Justice and Rule]

It is. It's just the OP doesn't understand that. Making something too expensive to sell is just an indirect way of banning sales. Any sort of rewrite would cost considerably more than WotC makes in selling the product (which is trivial). And since a rewrite is removing the offending text from the document, it's still censoring it, just as much as going through it with a thick black pen is. Now, there may be a case that that is justified, I'm not going to argue one way or the other, but the OP needs to be realistic about what they are asking for if they are going to achieve anything.

I'm not going to address any point here because most of this is premised on the "rewriting" the product, which is not asked for anywhere in the petition. Once again, people are not actually reading what was written.

 

[Voadam]

That was some mismanagement by TSR. I was working in a bookstore at the time and any novel from TSR flew off the shelves at least the fantasy ones. The Buck Rogers line just rotted on the bookshelves. A good line of Mystara novels could generated another successful revenue stream. Very sad.

I bought and read the three dragon X Mystara novels but was not really a fan of them. I vaguely remember them being mostly about a dragon council which I did not remember from the half dozen or so Mystara gazetteers I had at the time and the novels did not particularly grip me. I remember thinking a dragon saying "The Dickens!" was an odd exclamation for a non-earth D&D fantasy monster.

 

[The Glen]

The dragon guy turned out to be a total Mary Sue. It was trapped in the human form surroundedbye hes adopted people. He was told that he was destined for greatness And then pretty much had everything handed to him including the power armor that let him take down dragons. The books were boring more than anything else. The black vessel wasn't bad but the rest of the books you could tell that they Didn't do much research into the setting. Explains all the major World shaping events that were never mentioned before or after

 

[guachi]

As an owner of GAZ10 and purchaser of it way back in 1988 I loved the ridiculousness of the book. I really liked Thar's Manual of Conduct. I don't use it when I run Mystara because of some of the stuff mentioned in the petition.

But, wow, have you got stuff wrong. The first three examples are not racist against African Americans or African American culture. The punk guy with the boom box reminds me very much of the White punk in Star Trek IV, for example.

And #8 is very wrong. The Ethengarians didn't "ignorantly imitate" the humanoids. "Learning quickly from the humanoids, Baka led his horsemen on raids against any humanoids foolish enough to venture away from the main group" (GAZ12). They copied their form of warfare so they could defeat them and drive them from the steppes.

Akkila Khan is absolutely not worshipped by the Ethengarians, despite you claiming they do so.

"The Immortals of the Ethengars are spirits who have achieved Immortality in the Spirit World, but who have a close affinity with the Ethengars. As part of their path to immortality, these Immortals helped the Ethengars to establish themselves on the steppes and so became an intrinsic part of the Ethengars' beliefs. Their awesome powers have been explained in terms of the Ethengars' way of life, in the same way as all Immortals become a part of any culture's religious beliefs. While Yamuga, Tubak, and Cretia are not Immortals of human origins, they take an active interest in the development of the Ethengars, taking on the same roles as do Immortals honored by other races and cultures." (GAZ12).

 

[Hussar]

I'm not going to address any point here because most of this is premised on the "rewriting" the product, which is not asked for anywhere in the petition. Once again, people are not actually reading what was written.

You keep repeating this, when it's not true.

Point #7 - ((Obviously I'm not exact quoting here)) calls for new authors to rewrite the problematic sections of the work from an "in universe" perspective which would reveal the crudities of the Gazetteer to be "false propoganda"

I'm sorry, but how is this not "rewriting" the product. It's right there in point 7 that the intention is to rewrite the product. You continuously repeating that it's not doesn't change the fact that @Dungeonosophy has specifically called for the work to be rewritten. It doesn't matter that the rewrites are bundled with the original text - it's STILL rewriting the product.

 

[guachi]

The fact Mystara is based on real-world cultures was a massive selling point. If you wanted to play a heroic-style character based on your nation's legends, Mystara probably had you covered.

A lot of people don't realize this. Europeans actually saw themselves represented in an RPG outside of just being "generic American idea of vaguely medieval stuff". Growing up in Montana, I had a Native American friend who was thrilled he was represented in Mystara by the Atruaghin Clans.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

You keep repeating this, when it's not true.

Point #7 - ((Obviously I'm not exact quoting here)) calls for new authors to rewrite the problematic sections of the work from an "in universe" perspective which would reveal the crudities of the Gazetteer to be "false propoganda"

I'm sorry, but how is this not "rewriting" the product. It's right there in point 7 that the intention is to rewrite the product. You continuously repeating that it's not doesn't change the fact that @Dungeonosophy has specifically called for the work to be rewritten. It doesn't matter that the rewrites are bundled with the original text - it's STILL rewriting the product.

Here's the section of the petition that you are quoting:

Also make amends from an "in-world" (fictional) perspective: by commissioning one or more culturally informed designers (who are either themselves experts in the World of Mystara, or in collaboration with aficionados of that world) to write at least a short re-imagining of the Broken Lands of Thar, whereby the racist crudities found in GAZ10 are revealed to be totally false propaganda by enemies of the peoples of Thar. There are any number of ways in which all of the problematic facets can be completely amended, while creatively preserving and enhancing the existence of the peoples of Thar within the fictional Known World of Mystara.

So, yes, it appears that the OP is calling for rewriting history.

But... there is a CYA clause earlier in the petition:

Note: let it be known to all that I have never called for 'censorship.' Rather than divide the community by yanking and hiding this title in a vault (in the manner of Disney's Song of the South), I call on Hasbro to humbly unite the community in this way:

All of the text following this disclaimer flies directly in the face of this denial of responsibility. Reading through the text of this petition... I don't know what to say. Telling people what to think instead of letting them notice and decide for themselves what is right or wrong. This petition is chilling. The heart is in the right place is the kindest thing I can think to say about it.

This is an offensive product, no question (to me anyway). My response to it is to not buy it. I don't think there are many people out there who would buy it (or at least wouldn't regret buying it once they flipped through it). But the answer is not to ban it (or modify it, or slap an editorial on it, etc.). An offensive work will die on the vine if left alone. Asking a publisher to place your own personal viewpoint of what is wrong with the work which becomes the baseline for all other purchasers? Sorry, no. That effort, as admirable as you think it is, is going to have zero effect on changing anyone's view on the subject anyway. If anything, you are going to fuel the fire of anyone who thinks this stuff is funny. No person wants to be thought policed. How would the OP feel if someone placed a label on a product they wanted to purchase but it didn't align with their world view?

 

[Teemu]

You keep repeating this, when it's not true.

Point #7 - ((Obviously I'm not exact quoting here)) calls for new authors to rewrite the problematic sections of the work from an "in universe" perspective which would reveal the crudities of the Gazetteer to be "false propoganda"

I'm sorry, but how is this not "rewriting" the product. It's right there in point 7 that the intention is to rewrite the product. You continuously repeating that it's not doesn't change the fact that @Dungeonosophy has specifically called for the work to be rewritten. It doesn't matter that the rewrites are bundled with the original text - it's STILL rewriting the product.

I understood it to be additional text, like an extra chapter that portrays the land and the people from a different perspective. I don't think it's supposed to remove any existing text, so it wouldn't really be a rewrite where you take out portions of the text and rewrite them.

 

[Hussar]

I understood it to be additional text, like an extra chapter that portrays the land and the people from a different perspective. I don't think it's supposed to remove any existing text, so it wouldn't really be a rewrite where you take out portions of the text and rewrite them.

But, that's not how it works. The new text expressly changes the original. It declares that the original text is null and void - that it is all lies. Which means that it absolutely IS modifying the original text. Now, again, I totally agree with the intent here. The original text is mind bogglingly bad. I 100% agree with that.

But, I'm responding to the idea that there are no changes being made to the original text. That is flat out incorrect. Point #7 expressly changes the original text by declaring it all lies.

See, the thing is, I can buy Shadows over Innsmouth, which is every bit as objectionable as this work, if not moreso, and I've never, ever seen a copy that included an extra chapter declaring all the eye wateringly bigoted stuff just "lies". I've never seen a copy of Merchant of Venice that declares sections to be "lies". I've never seen a copy of any number of fantasy works which included an addendum to declare sections to be "lies".

I 100% applaud the notion that work like this should be talked about and the work that @Dungeonosophy has done should be applauded. They have done fantastic work and it's pretty air tight. Absolutely. And this is something that absolutely should be talked about, particularly in light of some people in this thread trying to play the "well, my friend wasn't offended" game. This book is really offensive.

But, claims that the petition isn't trying to rewrite the work are not accurate. The petition is 100% trying to rewrite the work. And I don't believe that that is the best course of action when dealing with problematic genre fiction. We don't need to rewrite it. But, absolutely agree that we need to keep up the discussion and shine a great big spotlight on works like this to illustrate just how bad genre fiction was.

 

[Teemu]

But, that's not how it works. The new text expressly changes the original. It declares that the original text is null and void - that it is all lies. Which means that it absolutely IS modifying the original text. Now, again, I totally agree with the intent here. The original text is mind bogglingly bad. I 100% agree with that.

But, I'm responding to the idea that there are no changes being made to the original text. That is flat out incorrect. Point #7 expressly changes the original text by declaring it all lies.

See, the thing is, I can buy Shadows over Innsmouth, which is every bit as objectionable as this work, if not moreso, and I've never, ever seen a copy that included an extra chapter declaring all the eye wateringly bigoted stuff just "lies". I've never seen a copy of Merchant of Venice that declares sections to be "lies". I've never seen a copy of any number of fantasy works which included an addendum to declare sections to be "lies".

I 100% applaud the notion that work like this should be talked about and the work that @Dungeonosophy has done should be applauded. They have done fantastic work and it's pretty air tight. Absolutely. And this is something that absolutely should be talked about, particularly in light of some people in this thread trying to play the "well, my friend wasn't offended" game. This book is really offensive.

But, claims that the petition isn't trying to rewrite the work are not accurate. The petition is 100% trying to rewrite the work. And I don't believe that that is the best course of action when dealing with problematic genre fiction. We don't need to rewrite it. But, absolutely agree that we need to keep up the discussion and shine a great big spotlight on works like this to illustrate just how bad genre fiction was.

I don't personally see it as a rewrite. If a Forgotten Realms book includes a chapter detailing Rashemen, then later D&D Beyond publishes an article about Thay in which the neighboring Rashemen is painted as a backwater hellhole, that to me is just additional content. By your logic the D&D Beyond article would be rewriting the book's chapter on Rashemen. I don't think that's how rewrites are typically understood.

 

[Justice and Rule]

You keep repeating this, when it's not true.

Point #7 - ((Obviously I'm not exact quoting here)) calls for new authors to rewrite the problematic sections of the work from an "in universe" perspective which would reveal the crudities of the Gazetteer to be "false propoganda"

I'm sorry, but how is this not "rewriting" the product. It's right there in point 7 that the intention is to rewrite the product. You continuously repeating that it's not doesn't change the fact that @Dungeonosophy has specifically called for the work to be rewritten. It doesn't matter that the rewrites are bundled with the original text - it's STILL rewriting the product.

That is not "rewriting" something, that is creating something new. When you are writing a "short reimagining", that is a new piece, not touching the old stuff but creating something beyond that. I do not know how hard it is to admit that there is no "rewriting" but wanting to put in something new.

I do not know why everyone is trying to force this idea that they are modifying something old. The OP goes to lengths to say they are not doing that, and I think it's pretty easy to read that #7 is not about rewriting anything but creating new fiction to explain the old. In the other thread I mention what I think is a way more accurate term to describe this: retcon. What they are not asking for is a rewrite, but rather a retcon.

 

[Hussar]

That is not "rewriting" something, that is creating something new. When you are writing a "short reimagining", that is a new piece, not touching the old stuff but creating something beyond that. I do not know how hard it is to admit that there is no "rewriting" but wanting to put in something new.

I do not know why everyone is trying to force this idea that they are modifying something old. The OP goes to lengths to say they are not doing that, and I think it's pretty easy to read that #7 is not about rewriting anything but creating new fiction to explain the old. In the other thread I mention what I think is a way more accurate term to describe this: retcon. What they are not asking for is a rewrite, but rather a retcon.

I'm sorry, but, that's just sophistry. Retcon=rewrite. That's what a retcon IS - a rewriting of previous material. When Lucas redid Star Wars and Greedo shoots first, that's a retcon.

Look, when numerous people are telling you that what you are doing is X, then, perhaps, just maybe, you might be doing X. I get standing firm, but, there does come a point where sheer bloody mindedness isn't really doing anyone any good.

Point 7 is a rewrite. Rewriting older material is very complicated and often raises a lot of very reasonable and important issues.

And, since this is a + thread, that would be my + contribution. Tone back the rhetoric a bit, take out point 7, and see where that leaves you. Is Point 7 really that central to the issue? Would removing/ammending Point 7 cause the whole thing to fall apart? I don't think so. So, instead of trying to force this, when it's obviously causing all sorts of push back, why not remove it and see where that leads?

 

[Hussar]

I don't personally see it as a rewrite. If a Forgotten Realms book includes a chapter detailing Rashemen, then later D&D Beyond publishes an article about Thay in which the neighboring Rashemen is painted as a backwater hellhole, that to me is just additional content. By your logic the D&D Beyond article would be rewriting the book's chapter on Rashemen. I don't think that's how rewrites are typically understood.

By that logic, the Spellplague should not have been a problem at all then. It didn't rewrite anything after all...

But, considering the incredible amount of outcry over the Spellplague, I'm thinking that perhaps "adding material that reinvisions previous material" or, to use the phrase, "retcons" do, in fact, rewrite previous material.

 

[Cadence]

I'm sorry, but, that's just sophistry. Retcon=rewrite. That's what a retcon IS - a rewriting of previous material. When Lucas redid Star Wars and Greedo shoots first, that's a retcon.

I'm just confused about why calling it a recton or rewrite really matters?

Look, when numerous people are telling you that what you are doing is X, then, perhaps, just maybe, you might be doing X. I get standing firm, but, there does come a point where sheer bloody mindedness isn't really doing anyone any good.

I assume this isn't meant to apply to whether this is really a 5.5 or 6e instead of just expanded 5e? I'm pretty sure numerous people are saying its the former. ;-)

 

[AnotherGuy]

A lot of people don't realize this. Europeans actually saw themselves represented in an RPG outside of just being "generic American idea of vaguely medieval stuff". Growing up in Montana, I had a Native American friend who was thrilled he was represented in Mystara by the Atruaghin Clans.

Bolded for emphasis.
This! This right here is one of the biggest draws for Mystara by the international community. It is why, on Pandius, you have so many Mystaran fans creating additional cultural content (taken from the RW) to be used to add even further flavour to the overall setting.

 

[Teemu]

By that logic, the Spellplague should not have been a problem at all then. It didn't rewrite anything after all...

But, considering the incredible amount of outcry over the Spellplague, I'm thinking that perhaps "adding material that reinvisions previous material" or, to use the phrase, "retcons" do, in fact, rewrite previous material.

I understood “rewriting” as replacing and something at least adjacent to censoring if the motivation is to remove undesirable elements. Do you mean that every addition or retcon is rewriting? Isn’t that an extreme understanding of rewriting?

Following your logic further, the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide rewrote all the previous FR books. The 2014 Player’s Handbook rewrote all previous D&D Player’s Handbooks? It doesn’t really sound like a reasonable take on what constitutes rewrites.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Look, when numerous people are telling you that what you are doing is X, then, perhaps, just maybe, you might be doing X. I get standing firm, but, there does come a point where sheer bloody mindedness isn't really doing anyone any good.

Well, that and the fact that the petition has exactly 14 signatures to date (including the OP's!). Standing by your opinion in the face of opposition is great, but at some point you have to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you might be wrong.

 

[Justice and Rule]

I'm sorry, but, that's just sophistry. Retcon=rewrite. That's what a retcon IS - a rewriting of previous material. When Lucas redid Star Wars and Greedo shoots first, that's a retcon.

And what Lucas did with the prequels is a retcon, but none of those needed to alter a frame of the old one movies. Retcons do not need to rewrite anything, but simply recontextualize things with new content. That's how comics often do it.

Look, when numerous people are telling you that what you are doing is X, then, perhaps, just maybe, you might be doing X. I get standing firm, but, there does come a point where sheer bloody mindedness isn't really doing anyone any good.

Or maybe they're just knee-jerk responding to something. Again, nothing in there talks about "rewriting" anything. Adding on new material can change the intent of content without changing the composition of the original content.

Point 7 is a rewrite. Rewriting older material is very complicated and often raises a lot of very reasonable and important issues.

No one is touching the old material, they are just adding new material that addresses it. Nothing is being rewritten, it is just being recontextualized. Again, many (and in fact, most) retcons don't involve changing the old material as much as adding supplementary material that changes the previous meaning.

And, since this is a + thread, that would be my + contribution. Tone back the rhetoric a bit, take out point 7, and see where that leaves you. Is Point 7 really that central to the issue? Would removing/ammending Point 7 cause the whole thing to fall apart? I don't think so. So, instead of trying to force this, when it's obviously causing all sorts of push back, why not remove it and see where that leads?

I don't think it does, but I also think that you are just absolutely wrong about what constitutes a "rewrite".

 

[ReshiIRE]

Well, that and the fact that the petition has exactly 14 signatures to date (including the OP's!). Standing by your opinion in the face of opposition is great, but at some point you have to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you might be wrong.

How many people agree with you isn't a measure of whether your argument or actions are right or wrong. It's just a measure of how much people agree with you, and whether you are going to succeed or not in that action. It doesn't even say whether you're going to influence others or not.

I mean... a lot of things like this start rather small and go on to grow or not. Discussion, arguments and fighting on are what changes things, not just starting something and giving up because you don't find many people agreeing with you.

You have to consider you are right when other people present arguments that counter yours, facts that recontextualise or change things, present examples of something already being done and worked or did not, etc. The volume of people arguing against you doesn't change the quality of your argument.

I mean - have we not seen what platforms like Reddit can easily devolve into, where the amount of people who agree with you literally determines what comments nad posts get to the top? That often leads to a significant amount of misinformation, poor arguments, and incredibly incorrect things. It encourages echo chambers, where only 'right' opinions can be expressed. (Reddit isn't the worst and the actual harm of low karma is fairly low, but it does cause people to act in weird ways to heavily downvoted people, especially since Reddit no longer shows how many people agree or disagree with a post)

A traditional forum structure avoids that. That's why we're even able to have a conversation like this, right now.