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

 

[Alzrius]

So, in my opinion (as a non-Asian), having a pan-Asian setting would be fine, as long as it wasn't filled with such a terrible mishmash of ideas and there was effort put into making them in a sensible setting.

This strikes me as one of those things that sounds good in the abstract, but has the proverbial rubber hit the road when it comes time to quantify "terrible," "mishmash," "effort," and "sensible."

For instance, how would you indicate in a clear and unambiguous manner which elements of the setting are presented as being dissimilar to real-world cultures on purpose so as to indicate their difference from historical Earth, as opposed to out of ignorance for the culture(s) being presented as pastiche?

 

[Zardnaar]

look, I am sorry if your REALLY want harmful things that can trigger depression and PTSD in real world people in your books, I just don't know what to tell you. If you do it in a homegame you know who you are showing it to, the bigger your audience the more you have to be careful, or you could end up hated for it.

I don't just pointing out that a sanitized idealized Americanized products to a non American can still come off as complete rubbish.

I know some NZ authors are working on a Polynesian themed 5E book. No idea what's in it (well I know some of it).

Just saying if you did produce a realistic authentic rog book what's in it might offend an American audience depending on what they chose to include and how they did it.

If you did a fantasy Aotearoa/NZ you could find someone signing off on themes involving slavery, cannibalism and genocide. For me it would depend on how they did it it's not universal across Polynesia.

Cultural blending. Maori metal group.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I'd think a book on Mythic Polynesia would not focus on things like slavery or cannibalism, they would rather be background elements that exist. They'd focus on belief systems, skills specific to the setting, vessels, equipment and weapons, fighting styles, names, monsters and threats, trade, environmental hazards, architecture, class system if any...etc

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I don't just pointing out that a sanitized idealized Americanized products to a non American can still come off as complete rubbish.

okay but you have an uphill battle if you want to change that

Just saying if you did produce a realistic authentic rog book what's in it might offend an American audience depending on what they chose to include and how they did it.

yeah, so they have to decide if being authentic is worth loseing money. I mean it's simple really. The more you want to sell the more you have to respect the cultural change of norms.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

"Ish." The problem is that Oriental Adventures-esque settings are usually filled with blatant stereotypes based on Western misunderstandings of how various Asian cultures worked (and the assumption that they were all very similar), while the European-style settings aren't like that. They're like having a vaguely-European setting where everyone is a chivalric knight who engages in palace intrigue, wears liederhosen, and wields a rapier while throwing chicken bones on the rush-covered floors of a moat-surrounded, cannon-guarded longhouse. So, in my opinion (as a non-Asian), having a pan-Asian setting would be fine, as long as it wasn't filled with such a terrible mishmash of ideas and there was effort put into making them in a sensible setting.

I get what you are saying here and in general I agree, but you example mythic European setting would not bother me as someone European, whose ancestors have from been oppressed at home for about 100 years (though I might draw the line at liederhosen ) I can very well imagine that other people who are experiencing discrimination due to their background/ancestry might not agree with me.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Cultural blending. Maori metal group.

Thanks for this!
I think my metal-head friends will actually like this.

 

[Dreamscape]

okay but you have an uphill battle if you want to change that

From the viewpoint of the growing indigenous TTRPG industries outside the US, disinterest in sanitised, idealised Americanised products is a good thing. Unless they also want to sell to the US market, in which case they'll have to abandon local preferences for the bigger spenders overseas. Applies equally to the Chinese market, of course.

 

[Zardnaar]

okay but you have an uphill battle if you want to change that

yeah, so they have to decide if being authentic is worth loseing money. I mean it's simple really. The more you want to sell the more you have to respect the cultural change of norms.

As I said the world's not American and there's different cultural norms here. It's not up to you to impose your views on the rest of the world.

I'm not saying a book like that is a great idea or commercially viable. But a Maori author could turn out something like that and it would tick all the boxes in terms of cultural authentication.

I linked two different videos of work by Polynesian artists. One was a descendent of a slave the heavy metal video was about the Muskat Wars.

Reason slavery gets used in entertainment is because it's a source of conflict and depending on when/where you set your story eg ancient Greece or Rome it was very common.

 

[Zardnaar]

Thanks for this!
I think my metal-head friends will actually like this.

Yeah it's a good song and fantastic video.

 

[Jaeger]

Ed Greenwood is from Canada, but he is (presumably) of European descent. IMHO, it's not about giving anyone a free pass. It's about constructing an appropriate comparison. Mythic Polynesia didn't have anyone of Polynesian descent working on it, ...

Greenwood mashes up European cultures just as bad in the FR as the Design Mechanism did with Mythic Polynesia.

That is not a strawman - which would be an an intentionally misrepresented proposition.

There is nothing misrepresented about the way the Forgotten Realms makes all the same mistakes about European cultures, that the Design mechanism has made with Polynesian cultures in Mythic Polynesia.

It is a direct and appropriate comparison.

Yet when it was pointed out that FR has the exact same issues as Mythic Polynesia, those concerns were swept away with: "Greenwood is of European descent".

How exactly does a Canadian having European ancestry magically make it ok for him to mash up European cultures? I don't see the relevance.
It's a total Red Herring.

So we are not talking strictly in terms of superficial research, but also about the authors' own voice, life experiences, and background that they bring to the project.

There is nothing inherent about Ed Greenwood's distant European ancestry that makes him any more qualified than someone of a completely different ethnicity that was born and grew up in Canada, that attended the same schools, and took the same classes, to write on medieval European culture.

As the critiques of TSR's Oriental Adventures show - There is no free pass - when and how Ed grew up, and when he wrote the FR does not matter.

Do you want WotC to change Forgotten Realms so that it better represents the plethora of European cultures?

Why not?

Are they committed to accurate representation of diverse cultures or are they not?

Sure, and I do that too, but... According to that series of tweets, Mythic Polynesia was supposed to be actual, real-world Polynesia, but magical. Whereas the Realms (or Mystara, etc.) aren't supposed to be actual, real-world European countries. They're fantasy places whose flavor was taken from real places.

So, personally, I think comparing the vaguely pan-Eurpoean style of a typical D&D-type setting to a book that's supposed to be about real-world places is... not a very useful comparison.

TSR's Oriental Adventures setting of Kara-Tur was a 'fantasy place whose flavor was taken from real places'.

And OA has been panned for exactly the same reasons Mythic Polynesia is now being raked through the coals.

Has it not been established that “it’s just fantasy” is not an acceptable argument or excuse?