Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
"Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Justice and Rule" data-source="post: 8502902" data-attributes="member: 6778210"><p>Let me ask you: should Wizards be making money off this sort of thing? I mean, this is blatantly racist stuff... do you think Wizards should be pocketing anything from this?</p><p></p><p>I ask because I think the idea of this disappearing is unfounded. This is the internet. Nothing disappears. When we talk about this being available through DM's Guild, we're talking less about preservation and more ease of access, because at some level we can find this. This is not me advocating or condoning any sort of piracy, but simply recognition that once something is on the internet, it never leaves.</p><p></p><p>So we move on to the idea that is it ethical or right that WotC should make money off something they didn't produce and is just inherently, terribly racist? Even as a joke, it's bad, right? And that's where I think maybe we differ: I actually think it's really unethical for them to make money off this. And I'm not saying that they should do this for everything, but I <em>do</em> love my specifics and this <em>specific </em>thing? I think it's necessary.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. You may not please everyone, but you can please <em>some </em>people and hopefully more than those you don't. Maybe not charity for all, but at least there are big offenders that it would be worthwhile to give something up for.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The past is a foreign country, but that doesn't mean you can't reexamine it and reflect on it. You don't need to have a giant press release every day you do this. Like, the OP wasn't demanding that every day you put up a new press release on a disclaimer talking about what they did that was so terrible. I mean, to me it seems like the disclaimers are not the most important thing. They have value, they should be there, but they are the easiest part.</p><p></p><p>What is important is how OP frames what they want to do: It's in a paper, a serious and thoughtful examination of what they found and where things were wrong. I know they say to detail individual bad portrayals, but I'm guessing they don't mean a literal long list, but rather showing the public these bad portrayals and why they are bad. Like, GAZ10 is very easy, but I know various things about Chult (even the newer stuff) has received criticism for different things: destroying the biggest civilized hub in Chult for 4E, and the mishmash remix for a generic African culture for Chult. </p><p></p><p>Now if you don't know why that last one is problematic, then that's why we need this. This isn't meant to be a gigantic flagellation of D&D and the community, but a self-examination of where we came from, and to recognize what we did wrong, both the easy stuff to see and the more difficult. And through this, to create the tools and the understanding to help people who might not know about this stuff but want to improve.</p><p></p><p>We can't go back to the past, but we can look back and understand the mistakes we made so that we don't make them in the future.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Look, I can't speak for OP, but I don't think they'd like their efforts and examination to be written off as worrying about something they shouldn't. They were looking at something they clearly cared about: the first link to this thread is a post about updating Mystara from <s>two</s> <s>three</s> <strong><em>four</em></strong> years ago (My God, it's been four years) started by them! This wasn't just worrying, but something out of love. Like there are always more important things to worry about, but you write lengthy examinations of different issues and ideas in D&D that I read all the time. If I told you there were bigger things to worry about than whatever topic you decided to write about... well, I don't think I have that right.</p><p></p><p>And I mean, you change what you can. They love Mystara, clearly. They want to change it because they want to be comfortable there, and for them they want WotC to come to terms with the past of the pdf they are selling. I don't have to go through life seeing all the little ways that the system talks down to me (at least, not for my race or gender, at least) and for those who do, I can understand wanting to change what aspects they can, even the little ones. Given that this seems way more of a slam dunk than trying to change the chop, why <em>not</em> ask for it?</p><p></p><p>I dunno. For me, I see what the OP wants as something positive and hopeful, not castigating. You can always keep doing other things at the same time, since it's not like this sort of thing has to occupy too much of one's time. Why not try, if only because maybe they could succeed?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Again, for me it's more the ethics of should they make money off this or not. For you, it may be different. But I think that's why I'm more okay with the egregious stuff being put to charity. Not everything problematic necessarily go to charity, but I'm sure there are big things that can.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Justice and Rule, post: 8502902, member: 6778210"] Let me ask you: should Wizards be making money off this sort of thing? I mean, this is blatantly racist stuff... do you think Wizards should be pocketing anything from this? I ask because I think the idea of this disappearing is unfounded. This is the internet. Nothing disappears. When we talk about this being available through DM's Guild, we're talking less about preservation and more ease of access, because at some level we can find this. This is not me advocating or condoning any sort of piracy, but simply recognition that once something is on the internet, it never leaves. So we move on to the idea that is it ethical or right that WotC should make money off something they didn't produce and is just inherently, terribly racist? Even as a joke, it's bad, right? And that's where I think maybe we differ: I actually think it's really unethical for them to make money off this. And I'm not saying that they should do this for everything, but I [I]do[/I] love my specifics and this [I]specific [/I]thing? I think it's necessary. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. You may not please everyone, but you can please [I]some [/I]people and hopefully more than those you don't. Maybe not charity for all, but at least there are big offenders that it would be worthwhile to give something up for. The past is a foreign country, but that doesn't mean you can't reexamine it and reflect on it. You don't need to have a giant press release every day you do this. Like, the OP wasn't demanding that every day you put up a new press release on a disclaimer talking about what they did that was so terrible. I mean, to me it seems like the disclaimers are not the most important thing. They have value, they should be there, but they are the easiest part. What is important is how OP frames what they want to do: It's in a paper, a serious and thoughtful examination of what they found and where things were wrong. I know they say to detail individual bad portrayals, but I'm guessing they don't mean a literal long list, but rather showing the public these bad portrayals and why they are bad. Like, GAZ10 is very easy, but I know various things about Chult (even the newer stuff) has received criticism for different things: destroying the biggest civilized hub in Chult for 4E, and the mishmash remix for a generic African culture for Chult. Now if you don't know why that last one is problematic, then that's why we need this. This isn't meant to be a gigantic flagellation of D&D and the community, but a self-examination of where we came from, and to recognize what we did wrong, both the easy stuff to see and the more difficult. And through this, to create the tools and the understanding to help people who might not know about this stuff but want to improve. We can't go back to the past, but we can look back and understand the mistakes we made so that we don't make them in the future. Look, I can't speak for OP, but I don't think they'd like their efforts and examination to be written off as worrying about something they shouldn't. They were looking at something they clearly cared about: the first link to this thread is a post about updating Mystara from [S]two[/S] [S]three[/S] [B][I]four[/I][/B] years ago (My God, it's been four years) started by them! This wasn't just worrying, but something out of love. Like there are always more important things to worry about, but you write lengthy examinations of different issues and ideas in D&D that I read all the time. If I told you there were bigger things to worry about than whatever topic you decided to write about... well, I don't think I have that right. And I mean, you change what you can. They love Mystara, clearly. They want to change it because they want to be comfortable there, and for them they want WotC to come to terms with the past of the pdf they are selling. I don't have to go through life seeing all the little ways that the system talks down to me (at least, not for my race or gender, at least) and for those who do, I can understand wanting to change what aspects they can, even the little ones. Given that this seems way more of a slam dunk than trying to change the chop, why [I]not[/I] ask for it? I dunno. For me, I see what the OP wants as something positive and hopeful, not castigating. You can always keep doing other things at the same time, since it's not like this sort of thing has to occupy too much of one's time. Why not try, if only because maybe they could succeed? Again, for me it's more the ethics of should they make money off this or not. For you, it may be different. But I think that's why I'm more okay with the egregious stuff being put to charity. Not everything problematic necessarily go to charity, but I'm sure there are big things that can. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
"Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D
Top