D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Ruin Explorer]

...I'm waiting for the critical eye to be turned to some older 3PP supplements, myself. Obscurity is the sole solving grace.

Yeah, wow, huh right?

There is tons of stuff out there that is largely just "skating under the radar" or however you want to put, and a lot of it is later than The Orcs of Thar. It's not generally as bad (what is?) but there is some really messed-up stuff out there, and not just the stuff intentionally trying to be. And that's just D&D-related stuff, if we looked at other TTRPGs there's a lot more.

 

[Krachek]

These are small words. Because they play on the fear of "fandom" that our toys will be taken from us if we don't behave like nice wittle customers.

Do you honestly think that because I'm suggesting a path of amends for "red orcs" and "yellow orcs", that WotC will never publish settings, guides, or supplements which have "cultural reference"?

I can see around me that it is getting harder to make product that contain cultural-historical reference, even if the projects are made in good faith and respect. Here in Quebec, I have heard of two scenic show that have been cancelled due to protests. You can take a look at what is going on in American university, some subjects are willingly avoid even in an academic environment.

In Dnd, we have see the Vistani case, we got Warning on old products, and in this thread you personally ask for amends. I can’t tell if the future will bring more pressure on Wotc. But I can see that they are actively concerned, and I can guess that they have now some review committee on cultural-historical matter. They won’t be smarter or bold than university professors, they will avoid sensible subjects, or mixup and blend reference the the point that no one will be able to match it with actual or historical one.

 

[Mirtek]

He said "major", so nah, not really. You could rely on reader flagging (just set up an email for it or w/e) to get a priority order of which ones people saw as most problematic. It might not be perfect but it would likely be pretty close to accurate.

So what is a "major" product ? From my gut feeling I would not have flagged a Gazetter as "major".

It's probably not neccessary to check a dice set or a bunch of character sheets. Although who knows whether there has been as set down the line with problematic images?

Edit: He didn't actually say "major" product, but major offense. And such a major offense can be even in a minor product. So at the end of the day you'd have to check all to see which ones hide such a major offense

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So what is "major"? From my gut feeling I would not have flagged a Gazetter as "major".

Uh, I'm pretty "major" was intended to refer to the level of problematic-ness, rather than the importance of the product. Really surprised you're reading:

1) Well, ideally each legacy product which has major "ethnic, racial, or gender prejudice" would be looked at by a team of professional cultural consultants.

That way. Bold mine.

And as I've said, you work by people flagging this up.

 

[Mirtek]

...I'm waiting for the critical eye to be turned to some older 3PP supplements, myself. Obscurity is the sole solving grace.

Well, if it's some mayfly company that arose during the D20 hype and is long ceased business, there's no one left to adress the criticism to anymore.

 

[Mirtek]

Uh, I'm pretty "major" was intended to refer to the level of problematic-ness, rather than the importance of the product. Really surprised you're reading:

And to know which publication contains such major level of problematic-ness you have to check them all. How else would you know where those intances are?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And to know which publication contains such major level of problematic-ness you have to check them all. How else would you know where those intances are?

As I've said, you let players flag them. You don't need to actively search for them, and further, if you do, you're more likely to end up missing some. There's no way to be successful at this which doesn't involve some amount of crowd-sourcing.

 

[Voadam]

Relevant to this thread I feel the minor moral panic about Ace supposedly being "too violent for kids" was related to fears about race and culture. Specifically Ace was coded in such a way that she was basically a "b-girl" in the 1980s sense, i.e. she had a boombox, hair tightly braided on top of her head, a baseball bat, baggy jacket, etc. (though she's from the future and not from Earth). Hiphop was pretty huge at the time, and there was definitely moral hand-wringing about it (hell I went to breakdancing classes in the late '80s lol). As speaking out about her appearance etc. might have been seen as racist or bordering on it, instead there was moaning about her "violence". Which was pretty funny given the lack of concern about far more violent characters previously. It didn't last, but sadly neither did Doctor Who

She was from contemporary 80s earth though some of the episodes she appeared in were advanced into slightly near future (Lethbridge Stuart in his retirement remarks in passing about the current King at one point I believe). An event took her off earth to where the Doctor met her in her first episode Dragonfire. Later on the episode Ghostlight explores a little of her past on earth.

I recently finished watching the unfortunately incomplete set of 7th Doctor DVDs that Netflix has and think she was a great companion.

 

[Krachek]

How much cultural trait can we mixup before leaving the depiction of a unique culture?

We take a group of people living in carts, lead by a fortune teller. Look like the Romani people.
We add exotic animals, clowns, acrobats. Look like old wandering circus. Does it still depict Romani people?
We add traveling-trading of precious goods from one part of the empire to the other. Look like caravaners on the silk road.
At which point do we have stop to depict Romani and create an unreferenced culture?

 

[BookTenTiger]

How much cultural trait can we mixup before leaving the depiction of a unique culture?

We take a group of people living in carts, lead by a fortune teller. Look like the Romani people.
We add exotic animals, clowns, acrobats. Look like old wandering circus. Does it still depict Romani people?
We add traveling-trading of precious goods from one part of the empire to the other. Look like caravaners on the silk road.
At which point do we have stop to depict Romani and create an unreferenced culture?

This is why a publisher would bring in a consultant who is experienced in Romani culture.

 

[Zardnaar]

I feel like there's a typo in this sentence but I'm not sure what you're trying to say. The "at a minimum" doesn't seem to work with the rest of the sentence though.

Non-problematic instead of problematic maybe? If so I'm not sure that's really true. I think there are probably plenty that accidentally dodge any significant problematic stuff.

But I don't think that's really a problem. I think he said "major", and if you just let people email you or click a button after they've bought something on DM's Guild or w/e, the major offenders would get many times more hits than the other ones, and you could just have someone slowly working through it all.

I'm not sure where "correct" comes in. Acknowledge, though, is helpful. I don't think you need to hit every product. I do think there are ones as bad as this which perhaps deserve more than the disclaimer.

Meh. All they'd do would be to get the order of approach wrong, and you could quickly dismiss them. You keep a spreadsheet and if they make you look at X book first and it's obviously fine, you check it off and ignore future reports on that unless someone like emails with specifics.

It draws attention to it and clicks and views. Orcs of Thar was mostly long forgotten wasn't even that major when it came out.

It's fanning the fires if they did do a rewrite it would make YouTube videos etc.

Well more like blowing oxygen on near dead embers.

People think that helps but after the events of 2015/16 it makes things worse.

The product is a reflection of the time it was made. Sometimes those mirrors to the past aren't nice.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

It draws attention to it and clicks and views.

I love how you think this is a massive problem, rather than part of the process of healing.

People think that helps but after the events of 2015/16 it makes things worse.

I am genuinely at a loss to what you're referring to, but I'm guessing it's US politics stuff so verboten?

I mean looked at "events in 2015" and got this: Decade in Review: A look back at what happened in 2015

And I'm certainly none the wiser. Did Jeremy Clarkson actually punch his assistant because his assistant said "World of Darkness: Gypsies is a good supplement actually?!" or something?

 

[Zardnaar]

I love how you think this is a massive problem, rather than part of the process of healing.

I am genuinely at a loss to what you're referring to, but I'm guessing it's US politics stuff so verboten?

I mean looked at "events in 2015" and got this: Decade in Review: A look back at what happened in 2015

And I'm certainly none the wiser. Did Jeremy Clarkson actually punch his assistant because his assistant said "World of Darkness: Gypsies is a good supplement actually?!" or something?

Yeah I can't really go into to much detail.

The books essentially ling forgotten digging it up and say "look what I found it's so offensive" doesn't achieve much. Most modern gamers don't even know it exists don't think even I've read it.

Things fade into obscurity.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The books essentially ling forgotten digging it up and say "look what I found it's so offensive" doesn't achieve much. Most modern gamers don't even know it exists don't think even I've read it.

Things fade into obscurity.

Yeah I don't really buy it.

If you just pretend stuff never happened, it comes back and bites you in the arse a few decades later, or worse, people are gaslighted that it never happened, rather than people saying "It happened, but we're sorry", and letting everyone move on.

I can see different approaches being valid, but just pretending stuff never happened? That's not a smart strategy, and it's quite insulting to people who know it did, too.

 

[cowpie]

It draws attention to it and clicks and views. Orcs of Thar was mostly long forgotten wasn't even that major when it came out.

It's fanning the fires if they did do a rewrite it would make YouTube videos etc.

Well more like blowing oxygen on near dead embers.

People think that helps but after the events of 2015/16 it makes things worse.

The product is a reflection of the time it was made. Sometimes those mirrors to the past aren't nice.

I think people like to dunk on Orcs of Thar because:

1) It's fun
2) It's a way to demonstrate that you're against racism ('cause Orcs of Thar is obviously pretty cringey).
3) It's a way to signal membership in your tribe (I hate racism...me too!) and get social kudos.
4) It's a quick way to try and make the world a better place (all it takes is a social media post).

I do think that if we want to help indigenous people in a substantial way, that dunking on Orcs of Thar is not going to make that much of an impact, again because it's just a quickie way to raise awareness (social media posts take 5 minutes).

What the OP is doing by donating to the Lakota School at Pine Ridge is probably making a real difference, because it increases educational opportunities for kids who are suffering from significant poverty, and are still dealing with the aftermath of being subjugated 130 years ago.

If you really wanted to make a difference, don't post on enworld, don't edit D&D books, take a year off and go volunteer to work at that school. Live in a trailer, get paid next to nothing, deal with kids with emotional problems (due to poverty and bad family dynamics), while occasionally being told that "you don't belong here" by some of the more salty locals.

I speak from experience.

 

[bedir than]

How much cultural trait can we mixup before leaving the depiction of a unique culture?

We take a group of people living in carts, lead by a fortune teller. Look like the Romani people.
We add exotic animals, clowns, acrobats. Look like old wandering circus. Does it still depict Romani people?
We add traveling-trading of precious goods from one part of the empire to the other. Look like caravaners on the silk road.
At which point do we have stop to depict Romani and create an unreferenced culture?

Since both steps 1 and 3 include referenced cultures you cannot create an unreferenced culture.

The only question that matters is were the referenced cultures done in a way that accurately honored them, or not.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Sounds complicated.

Dungeons & Dragons is one of the most complicated games ever produced. (Along with TTRPGs in general.)

If TSR/WotC can write, sell, and profit from 142 pages of buffoonery containing racial slurs, replete with complicated stats for American Indian "Red Orcs" with "red hides", "Asian" Yellow Orcs with "ugly pekingese faces", and "Oriental" goblins with "yellow skins", it can produce a several page DRAGON+ amendatory article, and make commensurate, specific actions of direct amends, without yawning and nodding off.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah I don't really buy it.

If you just pretend stuff never happened, it comes back and bites you in the arse a few decades later, or worse, people are gaslighted that it never happened, rather than people saying "It happened, but we're sorry", and letting everyone move on.

I can see different approaches being valid, but just pretending stuff never happened? That's not a smart strategy, and it's quite insulting to people who know it did, too.

I'm not pretending stuff never happened. Redoing old legacy products is attempting to do exactly that.

There's a lot of cringey products from the 80's. It's not really viable to redo them. And look at the drama it creates when they do so eg with movies and you usually end up with an inferior product.

Learn from the past absolutely. Sometimes the better response is do nothing.

 

[Zardnaar]

Dungeons & Dragons is one of the most complicated games ever produced. (Along with TTRPGs in general.)

If TSR/WotC can write, sell, and profit from 142 pages of buffoonery containing racial slurs, replete with complicated stats for American Indian "Red Orcs" with "red hides", "Asian" Yellow Orcs with "ugly pekingese faces", and "Oriental" goblins with "yellow skins", it can produce a several page DRAGON+ amendatory article, and make commensurate, specific actions of direct amends, without yawning and nodding off.

And then what product are you gonna move into. There's lots of them to cover.

WotC wants to use Dragon+ to promote 5E. If you did that you would alienate people who like Dragon+ for that purpose (promoting 5E).

I don't bother with Dragon+ anyway as it's essentially an advertisement but you get what you pay for.

WotC isn't gonna do that. You might get a press release apology and a product withdrawn. They're not gonna spend much time and effort redoing old obscure material from the 80's that probably doesn't sell that well anyway.

If it creates a big media poo storm (that doesn't go away/point to warning label) they'll just withdraw the product.

There's lots of problematic material that still gets sold for a variety of reasons. People aren't going to redo it because it's a reflection of when it was created. Main reason why it's probably still in print

 

[Dungeonosophy]

We’re talking about a commercial producer of games, not an educational institution.

Apparently Wizards/Hasbro does view itself as an educational institution. On the GAZ10: Orcs of Thar product page, Wizards/Hasbro states:

"Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible."

D&D is apparently here to teach me/us.