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

 

[Hussar]

Part of the reason that people get so angry in these discussions is that there is a need to be "right" rather than a need to communicate. You can see it quite clearly in the whole Uncle Ben's thing.

A: I don't understand why Uncle Ben was changed. What's the problem?
B: Well, in America ((excellent reasons))
A: Oh, well, that makes sense. "BUT it shows that there is a major disconnect on what the story is".



Instead of just acknowledging the issue and moving on, we need to spend all this time "proving" that it is "really" an issue. It would help an awful lot if people would assume good faith arguments and not need to dot every i and cross every t. The question was asked and answered. If you (and this is a general you, not you specifically whoever you are) are unhappy with the answer you got, then spend some time actually researching the facts. These are incredibly nuanced, complicated issues and having to repeatedly prove every single thing just gets so frustrating.

It should simply be good enough to say, "This is making some people unhappy. It's not terribly difficult to see why this would make some people unhappy. It is costing us absolutely nothing to fix the problem. Let's go ahead and fix it."

I mean, seriously, is anyone actually negatively affected by changing the name from Uncle Ben's to simply Ben's? Is this in any way, shape or form negatively impacting you or costing you anything? No? Then why are you arguing about it?

The world would be a much, much better place if people could take the position that things that don't affect you, cost you nothing and make other people happy and don't hurt anyone, are ALWAYS good things.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

How many Americans can name the sides in the English Civil War, and can tell you which one supported the king?

Which one? The one between Stephen and Matilda, the one between the houses of Lancaster and York, the one between Parliament and the Monarchy, or the one to restore the deposed House of Stuart? Not to mention dozens of smaller rebellions.

 

[Blue Orange]

Which one? The one between Stephen and Matilda, the one between the houses of Lancaster and York, the one between Parliament and the Monarchy, or the one to restore the deposed House of Stuart? Not to mention dozens of smaller rebellions.

Heehee. Well done, though it proves my original point--a lot of people from outside the country aren't going to know much about the American Civil War..or the English one!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think, in this field, you can do a lot wrong by accident. Apologizing and doing it better is the way to go. And as long as poonting out mistakes and correcting them is both done in good faith, I like it.

Erasing everything related to any culture however is a bit too much and does not leave a lot you can write about.
And it would also be not what people want.
Representation instead of misrepresentation.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

How many Americans can name the sides in the English Civil War, and can tell you which one supported the king?

I'd say the Loyalist against the Rebels?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

that was my point... so yes, I have been 100% behind experts that can do research over using 'common' knowledge. I just hope the team they hire is good and diverse (although still not a replacement for hireing more diverse developers)

The problem with hiring more divers developers is also meaning you don't hire others who might be in the majority just by general demographics.
You might hire a bit more diverse developers to make up for structural racism however.

 

[Velderan]

It should simply be good enough to say, "This is making some people unhappy. It's not terribly difficult to see why this would make some people unhappy. It is costing us absolutely nothing to fix the problem. Let's go ahead and fix it."

I mean, seriously, is anyone actually negatively affected by changing the name from Uncle Ben's to simply Ben's? Is this in any way, shape or form negatively impacting you or costing you anything? No? Then why are you arguing about it?

The world would be a much, much better place if people could take the position that things that don't affect you, cost you nothing and make other people happy and don't hurt anyone, are ALWAYS good things.

This in a nutshell is my problem with people objecting to changes being made. The changes ultimately don't really matter enough to get upset about. Does it ruin Curse of Strahd because the Vistani were altered a bit to be less of a stereotype? Is Spelljammer a worse product because it doesn't have slave monkey people in it? Will the upcoming DL book be worse because (presumably) gully dwarves won't be featured as the result of banned inter-breeding between races? No, that's just stupid. Those are incredibly minor elements that don't affect the actual story that is being told and yet changing them can help a portion of the audience who actually face these prejudices in their lives.

World of Warcraft recently changed character creation to have you select between body type 1 and body type 2 instead of male and female. People got upset because they didn't understand why the change was needed. Why spend the mental energy getting upset about it? Is the result of how your character looks not the same as it has always been? At the same time, if you don't identify as male or female it tells you that you belong so it can only be a positive change.

 

[Starfox]

I'm not up to date on what originally happened. Is there a link that shows the old and revised versions of the Hadoze?

 

[Weiley31]

I can think of only one actual non-evil Nazi: Oskar Schindler. (Though there are probably other, less prominent, cases

From the movie The Pianist we get another example of an actual non-evil Nazi who became disillusioned by the Nazi party and was completely HORRIFIED by the treatment of Jews and Poles as well.

PDF Version: The guy used his position to help numerous Jews and Poles in Nazi-German Occupied Poland find refuge, provided papers they needed to escape/avoid death, and even had people working in areas under his oversight, keeping the Gestapo from well............doing terrible things to people. And was recognized on the Yad Vashem (Memorial to the victims of the Holocaust) as a person who risked his life during the Holocaust to save the lives of Jewish people. (AKA Righteous of the Nations, which is an honorific used by Israel).

Wilm Hosenfeld - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Weiley31]

I'm not up to date on what originally happened. Is there a link that shows the old and revised versions of the Hadoze?

Old and revised versions are listed on there.

Hadozee - 1d4chan

1d4chan.org