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

 

[Zaukrie]

The secret is if you do make a mistake, you own up to it, don't try to play it off and then actually not do the same thing again.

Where people run afoul the issue is almost always in ignoring or outright mocking people who point out there's an issue. Also, try and actually understand what you did wrong instead of, as youtubers often do, look around confused like a toddler who just discovered the stove is hot and just start crying in hopes that will make things okay.

100%. If anyone ever told me that a product I made was problematic, I'd change it. Of course, someone would have to comment on one of my products.....

 

[Marandahir]

I feel like the "I like it so it must be fine!" probably applied re: Hadozee. Like, oh they're cheery and fun, so how could they possibly be bad right? Oh dear. Never assume because something is cheery/fun to you it's going to automatically be fine.

Oh definitely. Chris Perkins spoke in podcasts specifically of his love of Star Frontiers and of Flash Gordon. The former is the TSR product from which Hadozee came, and had major issues that this book inherited, the latter also has major racist issues. But I can believe that Chris Perkins loved these things despite the evils in them. I can also believe he was in good faith trying to update Spelljammer in such a way that was not offensive. And I can believe he overlooked this offense because he has a love of the quirky and weird and even for someone who cares a lot about being anti-racist, it can be easy to overlook these things. I know I did. I didn't see the issue until people started making noise about it. And I've been through dozens of DEIB trainings and anti-racist workshops as a civil servant. But I'm also a middle-class hetero-cis white guy, so my privilege acts as a filter. If I was creating things for public consumption, I'd need to be EXTREMELY careful with my choice of stories, and probably also not try to do it all alone.

This is a part of the editing process now, at least for products with millions of eyes on them like Spelljammer has.

 

[darjr]

When I write something for sale, I pull a lot of fluff out of the monster entries, and that has stopped a few issues, IMO.

I'm writing up a blog post on nothics, and figuring out how to say insane w/o offending someone is interesting (at least in my head).....though I think I'm safe in this case.

I avoid topics like slavery and a few other things that I know are triggers in what I sell, mostly. My neogi product makes it quite clear that's what they are, and that if you don't like that topic, you shouldn't buy the product.....but even that gave me anxiety.

Ah. Actually I think seeing errata like this can help. For instance the removal of the word blind stood out to me. I never would have considered it.

 

[pauldanieljohnson]

I don't get what the issue is. I'm not trying to be ignorant here, but I own Spelljammer, and I think what he's talking about is the bit about how the Hadozees were created to be slaves by a wizard. Is that what made people upset? It just feels like a non sequitur to me. Black people were slaves in the real world, so a fictional race of alien slaves is offensive? Why? In Star Wars, the Empire declared Wookies to be a slave race. Is that offensive? This is me honestly asking the question, because I don't see what the source of offense is. In fact, if someone looks at an illustration of an alien monkey-person and thinks it looks like a black person, I'd say they're the one with the problem, not the writer or the illustrator.

 

[darjr]

I don't get what the issue is. I'm not trying to be ignorant here, but I own Spelljammer, and I think what he's talking about is the bit about how the Hadozees were created to be slaves by a wizard. Is that what made people upset? It just feels like a non sequitur to me. Black people were slaves in the real world, so a fictional race of alien slaves is offensive? Why? In Star Wars, the Empire declared Wookies to be a slave race. Is that offensive? This is me honestly asking the question, because I don't see what the source of offense is. In fact, if someone looks at an illustration of an alien monkey-person and thinks it looks like a black person, I'd say they're the one with the problem, not the writer or the illustrator.

There is a whole thread on that, I think it’s linked in the OP.

 

[Vaalingrade]

100%. If anyone ever told me that a product I made was problematic, I'd change it. Of course, someone would have to comment on one of my products.....

Then you shouldn't really have much trouble. Also, commiseration; I'm almost there myself.

 

[Marandahir]

I don't get what the issue is. I'm not trying to be ignorant here, but I own Spelljammer, and I think what he's talking about is the bit about how the Hadozees were created to be slaves by a wizard. Is that what made people upset? It just feels like a non sequitur to me. Black people were slaves in the real world, so a fictional race of alien slaves is offensive? Why? In Star Wars, the Empire declared Wookies to be a slave race. Is that offensive? This is me honestly asking the question, because I don't see what the source of offense is. In fact, if someone looks at an illustration of an alien monkey-person and thinks it looks like a black person, I'd say they're the one with the problem, not the writer or the illustrator.

It's okay to not see the issue. I know I didn't when it first came up. But victim-blaming isn't okay. And WotC themselves have owned up to this being a problem. They saw the issue. There's no question of the problem, but it is something you need to educate yourself on if you don't see it. Please go do that before digging yourself deeper into this hole. It'll help, I promise.

 

[Lojaan]

Good. I'm glad they followed this up and didn't just expect everyone to forget about it. The changes look good too.

I really hope they don't mess up like this again. I feel like WotC has run out of second chances.

 

[Marandahir]

Good. I'm glad they followed this up and didn't just expect everyone to forget about it. The changes look good too.

I really hope they don't mess up like this again. I feel like WotC has run out of second chances.

I'm not sure they've run out of second chances (if anything, the numerous offenses from M:tG show that they can flop over and over and over again and still get a get out of jail free card because that game practically prints money).

But I was kinda expecting them to try to get away with just that original statement and errata and not actually follow-up, as you say above. That's my experience from PR. This was a very welcome change of tactic, imho.

 

[MGibster]

I suspect that this will be something that a lot of companies will be doing more of over time. The same way Human Resources became more and more of a "thing" over time that companies brought into their businesses because it helped solve potential issues that kept coming up... Inclusivity and Diversity will likely follow suit in US companies especially over the next years.

Diversity, inclusion, and equity is currently the hot thing in human resources right now.