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

[BookTenTiger]

DnD settings are full of reference to historical empire and kingdom. Do they need to be accurate? do they need to make education on true history? DnD settings are there for entertainment. And entertainment products are solely evaluated on cultural and social belief at the time they are produced.

So the Gaz10 setting was printable 30 years ago, and today it is racism and bad taste mockery.

So what’s next?
Intent legal or criminal charges?
Ask for atonement by Wotc?
Ask to remove access to the setting and burn any remaining copies?
Start again to the next offensive setting?

Well you know what they say: those who ignore history will never repeat it.

Wait...

 

[Mordhau]

DnD settings are full of reference to historical empire and kingdom. Do they need to be accurate? do they need to make education on true history? DnD settings are there for entertainment. And entertainment products are solely evaluated on cultural and social belief at the time they are produced.

So the Gaz10 setting was printable 30 years ago, and today it is racism and bad taste mockery.

So what’s next?
Intent legal or criminal charges?
Ask for atonement by Wotc?
Ask to remove access to the setting and burn any remaining copies?
Start again to the next offensive setting?

Note it and move on. It already has a dislaimer. In effect it proves the disclaimer.

"We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & 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..."

Some. Yes. This one is definitely one of that some

 

[Malmuria]

DnD settings are full of reference to historical empire and kingdom. Do they need to be accurate? do they need to make education on true history? DnD settings are there for entertainment. And entertainment products are solely evaluated on cultural and social belief at the time they are produced.

So the Gaz10 setting was printable 30 years ago, and today it is racism and bad taste mockery.

So what’s next?
Intent legal or criminal charges?
Ask for atonement by Wotc?
Ask to remove access to the setting and burn any remaining copies?
Start again to the next offensive setting?

Maybe the next step is to make sure humanoid creatures aren't described using the same rhetoric and visual language as they have in the history of the game. Maybe those of us who have been playing since the late 80s or earlier can acknowledge that just because orcs, for example, were described in that way when we played the game as children, doesn't mean it's right to keep similar representation in the game now. And as wotc makes changes, albeit small, to address these concerns remove stereotyping, we can be supportive of the change as good for the hobby, so that in 30 years people don't have to look back and say "well it was 2020, people then didn't know any better."

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes, exactly, by the time Cortes arrived he essentially landed in a post-apocalyptic setting. Diseases arrived well before he did.

I don't understand what your argument here is.

Pizarro to some extent not Cortez. Incas were far from post apocalyptic as well when Spanish arrived.

The collapse of the NA civilizations one could argue was post apocalyptic by the time their conquest happened or Mexico and Peru post conquest.

And both empires were unstable pre contact.

 

[Krachek]

Q: Who exactly is suggesting any of this? Or is this just more nonsensical hyperventilating because someone has pointed out some obvious distasteful elements of a decades-old product that virtually no one even plays anymore?

A: No one is suggesting burning or censoring anything. So stop exaggerating how awful it is that some people find it instructive to examine old publications through a critical lens. Doing so in no way hurts the hobby, and it in no way hurts even the thinnest-skinned whiners in the hobby.

Indeed I think it’s a lot of hyper publicity for an old crappy product! I just follow trough with hyper solution.

 

[CleverNickName]

So the Gaz10 setting was printable 30 years ago, and today it is racism and bad taste mockery.

So what’s next?
Intent legal or criminal charges?
Ask for atonement by Wotc?
Ask to remove access to the setting and burn any remaining copies?
Start again to the next offensive setting?

The standard disclaimer that they have put on these older products, combined with their demonstrated efforts to do better going forward, is a good start. "What's next," you ask? The next step should be to ask marginalized communities if these steps are good enough, and if not, ask them how they could do better.

This is true for all content creators...not just game developers, and not just Wizards of the Coast.

Marginalized communities are not mysterious, esoteric social constructs that cannot be known or understood; they are real groups of real people, complete with real jobs, phones, and internet connections. Reach out, they will respond.

 

[J.Quondam]

Indeed I think it’s a lot of hyper publicity for an old crappy product! I just follow trough with hyper solution.

A couple threads in RPG forums peopled almost entirely by a few dozen D&D supernerds is not "hyper publicity."
Not even remotely.

It's just a discussion.

 

[Zardnaar]

A couple threads in RPG forums peopled almost entirely by a few dozen D&D supernerds is not "hyper publicity."
Not even remotely.

It's just a discussion.

Yep we're in a bubble here. I figured this out in around 2002/3 with 3E.

 

[Krachek]

The standard disclaimer that they have put on these older products, combined with their demonstrated efforts to do better going forward, is a good start. "What's next," you ask? The next step should be to ask marginalized communities if these steps are good enough, and if not, ask them how they could do better.

This is true for all content creators...not just game developers, and not just Wizards of the Coast.

Marginalized communities are not mysterious, esoteric social constructs that cannot be known or understood; they are real groups of real people, complete with real jobs, phones, and internet connections. Reach out, they will respond.

Indeed the answers I seek are already there.
Wotc made great efforts and personally I like the way they are handling the subject.
DnD can be an excellent way to learn and get interest of historical events, I just hope it will continue.

 

[Krachek]

A couple threads in RPG forums peopled almost entirely by a few dozen D&D supernerds is not "hyper publicity."
Not even remotely.

It's just a discussion.

I know, but I just discover this product with a kind of surprise.
1998! and when I look at the picture, I thought it was like 1950! even before the creation of DnD. Like and old magazine you find out in a box out of the basement of an old house.
So just stating in the thread title « in DnD » I thought we will be discussing about a big thing!
No it is an old marginal TSR product.
So yes I consider this a publicity to an old crappy product from the past, that was considered to be written with humorous style at the time, but failed the 2021 standard.