D&D 5E What happened to the Hermaphrodites???

[77IM]

#2 isn't always disrespectful, nor does it always require change. It's a lot more shaded than you're making it out. It's actually very complicated, and it's certainly possibly for the offended party to be unreasonable.

I've seen arguments online where an Asian-American has been offended and demanded an apology from a British man in the UK because he used the term, "oriental." The Asian American found it offensive and demanded that they stop using the term, while the British person said that was the term they use there and it's not offensive. Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese people living in Europe chimed in saying the term was common and not offensive. Nope. The American would hear none of it and demanded an apology.

For a contrived example, let's say Little People of America comes to WotC and says, "Hey, the terms 'dwarf', 'halfling', 'hobbit', and 'gnome' are all offensive terms for people of smaller size. We find your use of these terms very offensive, and your categorization of these characters as distinct races apart from humans doubly so. We're asking that you stop using these offensive and demeaning terms in your products." Should WotC comply? Is this a reasonable request?

What rights does being offended give you over the free speech of others? What are the requirements for hate speech? What's the difference between being polite, and compromising your artistic integrity? I'm reminded of the CODA from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, where he talks about all the requests he's gotten for changes to his works to make them more inclusive. It's one thing to prefer openness; it's quite another to demand it from others, particularly history. Let us not have our tolerance for who we are not grow to intolerance for those we disagree with or find flaw in.

No, #2 is disrespectful by definition, because it's dismissive. Recall that #1 is "apologize and try to reach an understanding." That second part is very important. In your examples above, that's the part people need to follow.

I suppose I did leave out an option: 3) totally capitulate without question. In a sense, that's being disrespectful to yourself. Did WotC do that? I hope not; I wasn't privy to the conversations they may have had about this behind closed doors. I suspect, in this case, they did the right thing. It's usually more respectful to honor the request of someone about what to call them. Your example about the term "dwarf" is not wholly hypothetical and highlights the importance of reaching an understanding instead of starting from the assumption that you are right and people who complain are automatically wrong.

 

[abirdcall]

You vastly underestimate (or actively ignore) the amount of public controversy the feminist or LGBT community can create when they make out a target no matter how minor it is (Tim Hunt being the prime example).

It's okay for a lot of people to stand together and say they don't like something.

What is not okay is what the alt-right does to those people. People's home addresses and phone numbers get posted on the internet and then they get harrassed day and night including with death threats.

Protest is okay.

Harrassment and threats are not.

 

[abirdcall]

WotC also knows full well that a large D&D player base (mostly but not limited to older editions) are alt-right and that making inclusive messages will piss them off. This will lead to loss of sales or worse from those people.

And yet their mesage of inclusiveness was still given. Courting certain groups over others is not censorship. People who don't buy D&D because of this aren't censoring WotC.

 

[Derren]

WotC also knows full well that a large D&D player base (mostly but not limited to older editions) are alt-right and that making inclusive messages will piss them off. This will lead to loss of sales or worse from those people.
.

I would like to see some sources on that.

 

[jaelis]

I would like to see some sources on that.

I don't have anything to offer on that, but I did find this article which is a kind of interesting read:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Dungeons_and_Dragons

--
Actually, I guess in regards to the claim that there is an alt-right player base, I think you can make an argument just based on statistics that almost certainly there are many dnd players who consider themselves alt-right. cf:
https://gamingwhileconservative.wordpress.com/

But whether that is a big enough population to significantly affect, say, dnd sales, I have no idea.

 

[abirdcall]

I would like to see some sources on that.

Here is a starter.

http://failforward.co.uk/post/93348768153/how-dungeons-and-dragons-is-endorsing-the-darkest

 

[Derren]

Here is a starter.

http://failforward.co.uk/post/93348768153/how-dungeons-and-dragons-is-endorsing-the-darkest

Which neither shows or even hints at how many d&d players are "alt-right" (or whatever you define as alt right) nor how they are distributed among the editions.

 

[abirdcall]

Which neither shows or even hints at how many d&d players are "alt-right" (or whatever you define as alt right) nor how they are distributed among the editions.

It does if you read it.

 

[Lwaxy]

Well,looks like this is going to go downhill,so maybe we should just leave it at "it got changed because it got changed" and everyone deals with it in their own way.

 

[Ganymede81]

Does that make sense?

Not really.

You're describing a paradoxical, zero-sum situation where, no matter what WOTC chose to do, WOTC buckled under the pressure of one group or another. It's nonsensical. Personally, I think your claims of boosting "artistic integrity" and avoiding "self inflicted censorship" (!?) are pretext.

Edit: Ok, so maybe I should have read the intervening pages of posts before replying, as, in the interim, this pretext has been completely abandoned by some of the posters.