WotC WotC's Chris Perkins On D&D's Inclusivity Processes Going Forward

Over on D&D Beyond, WotC's Chris Perkins has written a blog entry about how the company's processes have been changed to improve the way the D&D studio deals with harmful content and inclusivity. This follows recent issues with racist content in Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, and involves working with external cultural consultants.

The studio’s new process mandates that every word, illustration, and map must be reviewed by multiple outside cultural consultants prior to publication.

Leveling Up Our Creative Process: Learnings From Spelljammer

In this blog post, I'll talk about how we in the D&D Studio are changing our review process following the problematic content that appeared in Spell...

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Azzy]

More precisely, I'd say that I can see the effect. Publishers like WotC are being put in a box where a censorship panel reviews what they can and cannot publish. You can rename that censorship panel and call it cultural sensitivity expert or some other thing, but it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck.

So, not being an insensitive jerk is censorship now?

And I'm weighing that notion, which smacks of the sort of totalitarianism I thought our entire society was constructed to avoid, against the notion that one paragraph in an RPG supplement is worth this sort of collective handwringing.

People asking a corporation to do better is totalitarianism to you. That's one hot take.

 

[Umbran]

My use of the word "theoretical" is meant to suggest that the howling throngs who compelled WoTC to make these changes ...

Mod Note:
You started this discussion claiming you weren't trying to be ignorant.

But, as folks have tried to educate you, all we have seen is pushback, and now "howling throngs."

Your current presentation is not consistent with someone who "just doesn't get it". It is a person who gets it, and actively doesn't want it, and is trying to push it away. You misrepresented yourself. So, you are done in this conversation.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
Anyone else want to jerk chains, now is the time to retreat from this thread, and take your nonsense to another site. We'll have none of it here.

 

[Irlo]

Deleted. The point is moot.

 

[Minigiant]

So do you feel offended on behalf or Norwegians for the portrayal of Vikings and NotVikings in D&D? How do you know they are not deeply offended by that?
Or on behalf or very religious people for the inclusion of magic and demons?

Actually I do However there hasn't been a setting with Vikings and NotVikings as a major aspect that I know of since WOTC is just rehashing old settings and converting MTG.

And I am a deeply religious person and understand what magic and demons are. If anything WOTC DOESNT GO FAR ENOUGH AND D&D religion is too soft

 

[Ixal]

Actually I do However there hasn't been a setting with Vikings and NotVikings as a major aspect that I know of since WOTC is just rehashing old settings and converting MTG.

And I am a deeply religious person and understand what magic and demons are. If anything WOTC DOESNT GO FAR ENOUGH AND D&D religion is too soft

FR Illuskan look pretty Viking to me. And there are also other D&D/FR cultures closely related to real world ones like Mulhorand and Egyptians (in fact the book even says they were Egyptians from earth).

 

[Minigiant]

FR Illuskan look pretty Viking to me. And there are also other D&D/FR cultures closely related to real world ones like Mulhorand and Egyptians (in fact the book even says they were Egyptians from earth).

I actively block FR from my memory as it always felt like something a big soulless corporation paid a small town bookworm to design and openly announce that WOTC should drop it and make s new modern setting.

Thanks for reminding me that FR exists

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Also, I am not exactly sure how current Egyptians relate, given the history since, with pre-hellenistic Egyptian culture. It is not a given that they'd see themselves as direct inheritors and find Stargate offensive. It might not be the same realtionship as say Italians and the Roman Empire, where the link is direct.

 

[Ixal]

I actively block FR from my memory as it always felt like something a big soulless corporation paid a small town bookworm to design and openly announce that WOTC should drop it and make s new modern setting.

Thanks for reminding me that FR exists

Thats dodging the question though.
There are many, many real world cultures and religions in some way reflected in D&D, often not very accurately. When you take it upon yourself to feel offended on behalf of others, how do you know which one of those are offended enough so that you should too?
Do enough Norwegians disagree with the portrayal of Vikings in fantasy so that you should feel offended on their behalf? Arabs with the portrayal of "Arab inspired desert folk with scimitars"? Venicians with Venice inspired merchant cities? Mongolians with raiding horse nomads from the east? How do Germans feel about the area in Wildermount with all the mangled German names and the people who live there?

We also know for a fact that some religious Christians have a problem with magic and demons in D&D, see the Satan panic. Why not feel offended on their behalf?
People seem to be quite selective which people they should feel offended for and which people do not matter to them.

 

[Azzy]

So do you feel offended on behalf or Norwegians for the portrayal of Vikings and NotVikings in D&D? How do you know they are not deeply offended by that?

Unlike Africans Americans and Asian Americans, I haven't heard from Norwegians saying that they were not fine with various D&D Not-Vikings or saying that they are deeply offensive. However, were I to hear such complaints from Norwegians, I would support them if they asked WotC to create better representation.