D&D General Why a PETITION: Stop Hasbro's hurtful content is a Bad Idea

[haakon1]

And the river schools offer international tests vs normal schools that can't.

What’s a River school?

 

[Zardnaar]

What’s a River school?

Typo. Richer schools.

Basically the new system is a bit wishy washy and the richer schools offer international standardized testing.

They changed zoning laws afew decades back. When I was in school it was a lot more egalitarian. Black, blue white, yellow rich poor you all went to the same school.

So what's happened is the schools in the richerareas have become more exclusive as they only gave to admit people who live in those suburbs.

Essentially they priced the poor out and some of those schools offer international tests (perceived as better) and they seem to be doing a worse job at teaching the basics than the old system.

 

[Clint_L]

Typo. Richer schools.

Basically the new system is a bit wishy washy and the richer schools offer international standardized testing.

They changed zoning laws afew decades back. When u was in school it was a lot more egalitarian.

So what's happened is the schools in the richerareas have become more exclusive as they only gave to admit people who live in those suburbs.

Essentially they priced the poor out and some of those schools offer international tests (perceived as better) and they seem to be doing a worse job at teaching the basics than the old system.

This is getting off topic so I will wrestle it back on track by the conclusion, but I will start by noting that standardized testing is not well supported by evidence and is generally thought of poorly by educators. It is much more popular with politicians than with teachers or educational researchers. And when people refer to "the basics" they generally mean "what we learned when I was in school," though that may not be what you intended. The most successful school systems in the world, by any measure, focus on individualized education, not standardized education.

The issue that I see here is one of increasing intolerance for diversity. Again, this has long been a problem coming from the political right, so this is not a "woke" issue. But what is changing is that the political left is also becoming increasingly intolerant. Basically, we are becoming more ideologically entrenched in our politics and this is bleeding over into all kinds of other areas. Including D&D, unfortunately.

This is terrible, IMO. One of the great virtues of D&D is that it teaches exactly the skills that lead to greater appreciation of the value of diverse perspectives, by encouraging players to inhabit different personae and points of view.

 

[Justice and Rule]

What list? ~45 pages is not a list, it is a thesis. I'm not willing to read a thesis and rely on the intelligent comments from the few who have done so.

That's a bit ... aggressive response to a simple factual statement, isn't it? You didn't rely on his critiques, instead you kind of motioned at them. I've already quoted their solutions, so you don't need to even use the scroll wheel.

Because that would be a very likely business decision. @haakon1 and others have given the reason that such would be a logical business decision, even when its is not what is being asked for.

I don't really see it as that, but rather another way of just shutting down discussion. Has Hasbro just took stuff off the market like that? Is there any proof that that would be the response, or are we just speculating?

No. Get @Dungeonosophy to put it in a concise one page petition and I will read it. But this is simple not something I support enough to read a ~45 page thesis.

I've already quoted it for you, but apparently you just want to ignore that part.

What list? There is no list. There is a thesis.

You know, for all the people talking about "discussion", a lot of people really don't want to actually discuss what is being talked about. Let me repost it for those who apparently missed my previous quote of it.

1. Apologize for the hateful and hurtful depictions and racial slurs found in its GAZ10 PDF product.
2. Donate all of the past proceeds of this PDF—dating all the way back to July 29th, 2014, when the PDF was first offered for sale—to one or more appropriate cultural charities, such as the Lakota Waldorf School.
3. From henceforth, make the PDF "pay what you will," with all proceeds going to such charities, in perpetuity.
4. 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:
5. Hire one or more external cultural consultants with real academic credentials, to comb through the book and make a report of the exact nature of its wrongs. Hasbro's own boilerplate disclaimer claims that Hasbro "teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end." So, if Hasbro is here to "teach" us, then let's have the "teaching" done by real teachers with real credentials.
6. Henceforth, bundle this new scholarly report with the GAZ10 PDF, as an educational "teaching."
7. Also make amends from an "in-world" (fictional) perspective: by hiring 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.
8. Note: GAZ10 is also advertised as being compatible with the Forgotten Realms and the World of Greyhawk, with a suggested placement in Faerûn's "region of Thar," and/or a magical portal to there, and also to the "WORLD OF GREYHAWK Goblins of the Pomarj, or to Iuz." And so these amendatory actions apply not only to the World of Mystara, but also secondarily to those two worlds as well.
9. Henceforth bundle this amended re-envisioning of the Land of Thar with the GAZ10 PDF, along with the academic/educational report.

Scaremongering is a strong and inappropriate claim. Not what was being stated and not productive to the discussion to use such language.

It's also not productive to dismiss someone cataloging evidence as just "writing a thesis".

How much would that good will be worth? Would it be worth the risk they would be placing themselves in?

What risk? They are already selling an incredibly racist product for $20. What's the further risk here? This feels like an excuse to do nothing.

There are ethical and theoretical concepts. And then there are business realities. The two often do not result in the same decisions.

People like talking about business realities, but it's worth noting that business realities are not completely disconnected from ethics, and acting like they are is why we have businesses that feel they need to act in such ways to maximize profits.

 

[Dax Doomslayer]

I think that history usually shows that the side trying to ban / burn books is usually on the wrong side of history. When one looks at historical issues with a modern prism and today's modern sensibilities, there are always going to be problems. Times change and the social mores evolve with it. Twenty years from now, people will look at what is being said today about certain things, in a potentially similar light.

That said, in my opinion, the book does have considerable issues but it should not be changed/banned/altered. It should be used as a teaching tool as what not to do. Discussion is always a better way to go than banning in my opinion anyway...

 

[Justice and Rule]

This is getting off topic so I will wrestle it back on track by the conclusion, but I will start by noting that standardized testing is not well supported by evidence and is generally thought of poorly by educators. It is much more popular with politicians than with teachers or educational researchers. And when people refer to "the basics" they generally mean "what we learned when I was in school," though that may not be what you intended. The most successful school systems in the world, by any measure, focus on individualized education, not standardized education.

With this, I full agree.

The issue that I see here is one of increasing intolerance for diversity. Again, this has long been a problem coming from the political right, so this is not a "woke" issue. But what is changing is that the political left is also becoming increasingly intolerant. Basically, we are becoming more ideologically entrenched in our politics and this is bleeding over into all kinds of other areas. Including D&D, unfortunately.

I mean, I don't think it's the left being more intolerant. Certainly not from my experiences in the last few years, but that's beyond the scope of the thread. But I work in an exurban school, maybe your experience is different.

This is terrible, IMO. One of the great virtues of D&D is that it teaches exactly the skills that lead to greater appreciation of the value of diverse perspectives, by encouraging players to inhabit different personae and points of view.

Sure, but I think a lot of what's being asked for is to be more open and welcoming by getting rid of things that may put off some people. I think it's still very interesting to see the explosion of Tiefling and Orc/Half-Orc/Goblin/etc players with the new edition compared to years past, and I think that's because there are a lot of people who are entering the gaming space that see the sort of intolerance narratives that come with those sorts of characters and identify with them. It's also why I think you see a lot of people examining how we talk about other species in the MM and such more critically.

I think that history usually shows that the side trying to ban / burn books is usually on the wrong side of history. When one looks at historical issues with a modern prism and today's modern sensibilities, there are always going to be problems. Times change and the social mores evolve with it. Twenty years from now, people will look at what is being said today about certain things, in a potentially similar light.

That said, in my opinion, the book does have considerable issues but it should not be changed/banned/altered. It should be used as a teaching tool as what not to do. Discussion is always a better way to go than banning in my opinion anyway...

I mean, no one is proposing changing/banning/altering the book. The proposal literally talks about using it as a teaching tool. Please, read the actual petition.

 

[MGibster]

On a note that may or may not be relevant when thinking "products of their time" - in the late 1980's/early 1990's, I found the Julie Brown song "The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" hilarious because at the time it seemed so patently absurd. Listening to it five years ago, with the proliferation of school shootings in the US that has occurred in the interim, I found my amused nostalgia turning quickly to unease... because the patent absurdity that made it funny to my generation has been lost. The song hasn't changed - the world has and more importantly, I have - since the song is no longer patently absurd to me, it is no longer funny.

There was a comedy called Not Another Teen Comedy from 2001 featuring a scene on campus where a guy sings Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun" to a girl he likes named Janey. When he he starts singing, someone else shouts "Janie's got a gun?!" and a panic ensues as everyone starts to flee the area. Julie Brown's "Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun" was released in 1984 and Aerosmith's "Janie's Got a Gun" in 1989, and just 12 years later it was part of a joke about school shootings. Of course Aerosmith's song still gets played on occasion but the last time I heard Brown's song was in 2022, only because I looked it up and marveled how that song would not be acceptable today (and for good reason).

It's fantastic that people care about things like representation, racism, sexism, etc., etc., but I think a lot of us are trying to figure out the best way to reconcile our love for things from the past while recognizing the problematic elements they contain. Theoretically speaking, might a product be so bad that I think it's a good idea for a company to simply not sell it? Yeah. I probably wouldn't recommend anyone sell the World of Darkness book on the Romani that's actually titled something I can't type here because it's a slur. Where do you draw the line though? I don't know, and I think people can reasonably disagree on that.

I do think Orcs of Thar is an odd place to drawn the line at because it's such an obscure product. Despite owning tons of 2nd edition AD&D books at one time, I wasn't aware this book existed until someone opened a thread about it here in 2021. But given how terrible the book is and it's relative obscurity, maybe that makes it an excellent choice to start with. I don't think most of the demands are reasonable, and would only lead to WotC pulling the product, which I think is the real aim of the petition.

 

[Irlo]

I think that history usually shows that the side trying to ban / burn books is usually on the wrong side of history. When one looks at historical issues with a modern prism and today's modern sensibilities, there are always going to be problems. Times change and the social mores evolve with it. Twenty years from now, people will look at what is being said today about certain things, in a potentially similar light.

That said, in my opinion, the book does have considerable issues but it should not be changed/banned/altered. It should be used as a teaching tool as what not to do. Discussion is always a better way to go than banning in my opinion anyway...

It sounds like you might be supporting the petition, then.

 

[Zardnaar]

This is getting off topic so I will wrestle it back on track by the conclusion, but I will start by noting that standardized testing is not well supported by evidence and is generally thought of poorly by educators. It is much more popular with politicians than with teachers or educational researchers. And when people refer to "the basics" they generally mean "what we learned when I was in school," though that may not be what you intended. The most successful school systems in the world, by any measure, focus on individualized education, not standardized education.

The issue that I see here is one of increasing intolerance for diversity. Again, this has long been a problem coming from the political right, so this is not a "woke" issue. But what is changing is that the political left is also becoming increasingly intolerant. Basically, we are becoming more ideologically entrenched in our politics and this is bleeding over into all kinds of other areas. Including D&D, unfortunately.

This is terrible, IMO. One of the great virtues of D&D is that it teaches exactly the skills that lead to greater appreciation of the value of diverse perspectives, by encouraging players to inhabit different personae and points of view.

I'm in New Zealand a lot of American isms don't apply. It's top down and I think they started changing things 1999.

Another of things in America that cause problems have been the default here for years if not decades.

Well not everything here the younger GenXers were the last ones facing physial punishment (cane and strap).

Kids are still mostly kids but some things stand out. Here's your bike schools 5 kilometers that way vs similar aged kids now who can't cycle. That's kind of a cultural thing.

 

[Dax Doomslayer]

I mean, no one is proposing changing/banning/altering the book. The proposal literally talks about using it as a teaching tool. Please, read the actual petition.

I was speaking more generally from some of the comments I saw in that thread not the petition itself. In addition, I mentioned changed/altered which I feel would apply from the wording of the petition.

It sounds like you might be supporting the petition, then.

No, I don't agree with most of the points tbh. Sections 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 9 to be specific. Using it as a teaching tool (#6) is about the only thing I agree with.