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

 

[Faolyn]

It's especially pointless considering that there are actual different species in fantasy settings. I thought the Witcher TV show was interesting this regard. There is active and tangible conflict between elves and human societies, including racism and racial violence. So the show has white elves and black elves, but what you realize watching it is that skin color isn't the meaningful point of difference in that setting as it is for us in the real world. Rather, the meaningful point of difference is whether you are elf or not an elf.

As Pratchett said, "black and white live together in harmony and gang up on the green."

 

[Umbran]

Sure black and brown people lived in actual medieval Europe, but they were not common. I mean, at some point you have to admit that people evolved differently in different parts of the world, otherwise we would all look the same.

Yeah, but in Middle Earth, all the people were created. Evolutionary explanations do not apply to LotR.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

As Pratchett said, "black and white live together in harmony and gang up on the green."

Exactly. The Witcher is adapted from a Polish series of books. I am not knowledgeable about Poland, but there is a possibility that racism and xenophobia have other, or more common targets than African Americans in this country, on the model of what luiscarlos alluded to for Spain, for example and what I tried to explain as a cultural divide on how "lack of inclusivity/racism" manifest in different cultures along different fracturing lines.

 

[Umbran]

Anybody making claims correlating quality of script writing to casting diversity (or lack thereof) better have a metric f**ton of data…not cherry-picked examples… to back up such a preposterous claim.

Yeah.

How we determine whether a thing is "good" or "bad" is complicated. Not a single person here is from the planet Vulcan, so we can dispense with the idea that any of us are making such determination on a purely logical, analytical basis.

Unconscious biases are a thing.

 

[Remathilis]

this is a huge thread what’s going on…

Wow. I need to get in on this.

So about those Solomnic mustaches…

I prefer a diverse selection of facial hair.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Where are all the people who say D&D is a super flexible system capable of handing any and all types of games? Surely these people will speak up and talk about how trivial it would be for D&D to adapt itself to more diverse audiences??

 

[Faolyn]

Where are all the people who say D&D is a super flexible system capable of handing any and all types of games? Surely these people will speak up and talk about how trivial it would be for D&D to adapt itself to more diverse audiences??

Is someone saying it's not?

 

[Fifth Element]

There is literally nothing anyone can do to include marginalized minorities in modern media without some idiot online accusing it of having "forced inclusion".

Absolutely. Despite there being no way at all to know why the inclusion was ... included, you will always see claims that's it's been "forced" somehow. As if they can know the creators' intent merely from the result.

They don't say the same when a cast is all white, of course. And that's because the underlying problem is that they see white as the default. So only non-white casting is noteworthy and needful of explanation. As the expression goes, there are two races: white and political. The unconscious bias of defaultism is pernicious.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am not knowledgeable about Poland, but there is a possibility that racism and xenophobia have other, or more common targets than African Americans in this country

They do. It's depressingly easy to guess.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Exactly. The Witcher is adapted from a Polish series of books. I am not knowledgeable about Poland, but there is a possibility that racism and xenophobia have other, or more common targets than African Americans in this country, on the model of what luiscarlos alluded to for Spain, for example and what I tried to explain as a cultural divide on how "lack of inclusivity/racism" manifest in different cultures along different fracturing lines.

we as a people have a long history of 'otherizing' people and making them 'less then'. African Americans are the ones that have the longest run in modern time as 'the other' but make no mistake you can find people to dislike races, creeds, nationalities, skin tones, and hair colors much easier then you would like.