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

 

[Staffan]

Now, as far as depicting Vikings and viking culture, there is another difference as well. Vikings, AFAIK, in D&D are never depicted as victims, or, worse still, actually enjoying being enslaved - which is what Hadozee were shown as in the past. Vikings in D&D are always depicted in strong, positive terms. Which, again, being inaccurate in a depiction is not the same thing as being offensive.

As a Swede, the thing that offends me most about vikings or viking knockoffs in fantasy is when they wear horned helmets.

Well, that and nazis appropriating runes and stuff.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Thats a lot of errata for 192 pages. They may want to consider hiring some better game designers, proofreaders and editors while theyre at it.

What a mess of a product that was then.
Nevermind the people who were looking for more actual lore content and were disappointed with it.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Hi. Polish-American here.

Poles have had some historic levels of discrimination and misinformation in the last 100 years. They have been viewed as stupid, backwards, technology illiterate rural bumpkins, the Appalachia of Europe. Germany invaded it in WW2 and used it as a dress rehearsal for the Holocaust. Being locked behind the Iron Curtain did it no favors as it was disliked by Western Europe and by Russia. Even as recently as Brexit, people were telling Polish immigrants that "Brexit meant that you have to go home." Even today, dumb P*lock jokes are still considered ok to tell in certain circles.

This is not to compare to the historical treatment of Africans, merely to point out that lots of people face discrimination that you might not think. Which is why we need to support each other rather than determine who is worthy of grievance and who isn't. (This isn't aimed at you).

Indeed. The cultural divide doesn't work only one way (with people ignoring the idiosyncracies of WotC's main market), but also the other way round. Someone telling "all Nazi are evil, there is no distinction to make among them" in a village where soldiers were forcibly enlisted in units that committed war crimes and put on jobs related to crimes against humanity, and those who refused had their family executed is bound to elicit a... mixed reaction, even 70 years later. Yet I am pretty sure everyone on this board who ever posted "all nazi are evil" didn't do it with the intent to hurt but out of ignorance of this particular situation and was hurtful without intent to do so. While I concur with your conclusion, it would also be useful to contextualize the grievance to help others to understand why some topic are deemed problematic.

 

[Umbran]

@Umbran can I be thread banned as well. Removes temptation of debating on this thread, increases my happiness and those here.

Not trying to make a statement with this, just seems best after reflection.

As you wish....

 

[R_J_K75]

What a mess of a product that was then.
Nevermind the people who were looking for more actual lore content and were disappointed with it.

The product just felt lazy to me. Wow, reading the errata for these books, you are right its a mess. Disregarding what was changed for inclusiveness, I really get the impression that no one was on the same page, the lead designer didn't lead anything and just left people to their own devices. I appreciate they tried a new format, but I think the lower page count really hurt it. I liked the idea of separate books, but I really dislike that just about every book WotC publishes has to be a hardcover. Definitely going to be more selective of what I buy from them in the future.

 

[Umbran]

Slavery makes perfect sense.

Mod Note:
That looks a lot like, "Having no empathy for other sentient creatures makes perfect sense."

This thread was already warned that apologia for oppression isn't acceptable. Please be more careful.

 

[GuyBoy]

I was going to add my two cents worth but, since I’m British, it had better be my tuppence worth:
Penny 1: Respect to WOTC for doing exactly the right thing.
Penny 2: Respect to the moderators here for doing exactly the right thing.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I would rather to use the term "cosmopolitan", because a cosmopolis is a city with people from different origins.

The D&D I know has been maybe the most ideologically neutral.

There is a difference between accidental offenses and intentional hate-speech, even when this is subtile and hidden in the subtext. With the first ones some apologies should be enough.

A franchise of speculative fiction can be used to send positive messages, but also subtle pejorative stereotypes about people from the real life. A fictional creature could be used in a story as an allegory about a enemy power in the History.

You can use members from certain group, but without abuse. For example in your story you can add a "femme fatale", but if all the beatiful women in the plot are always "femme fatale", it could be tagged as mysoginy. I advice to add "positive tokens", for example if the antagonist is something like Fu-Manchu, then somebody in the side of the heroes has to be Chinese origin.

Even the fictional races shouldn't be typecasted in stereotypes too much, in the name of the gameplay. Some players want a kender PC but not being a clone of Tasslehoff Burrfoot or Dennis the Menace, neither all drow PCs have to be the cousin of Drizzt D'ourden.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Slavery makes perfect sense.
It is not hard to imagine different groups of species meeting, conflict arises for whatever reason, then one tries to dominate the other if possible. Some are more accustomed to making slaves due to their powers (Mindflayers) others use brute force (Drow, Giant, Orc).

Just like to clarify - this is not some kind of apologia for oppression of any kind on any matter that has been before in this thread or about any specific real or fantasy race.
All I'm saying we have multiverses with myriads of species, naturally conflict will arise for all sorts of reasons and the tendency for certain creatures to slave others will likely occur particularly if they are more powerful in one way or another. Just think of the Shape Shifters Star Trek DS9. In FR its history is riddled with slavery from undead masters in Thay, the Drow, to Ostoria, the Ordning itself is a hierarchical system...etc
In Dragonlance the Dragons ruled after the War of the Lance, in Mystara you have the Broken Lands invested in the slave trade as well as the Iron Ring in Karameikos, Glantrian mages used dwarves and halflings for magical experimentation due to their magic resistance....
Lets not even go to the Abyss and the Nine Hells.
So Spelljammer with the tech/magic ability to travel great distances, slavery would easily be thing with the races predisposed to it.

 

[SteveC]

This is pretty hard to believe. On the one hand, we have this truly awful content. On the other hand, we have a commitment to having multiple outsiders review every document, image, and map. And then we are having a row about if this is censorious.
Outside of gaming, I work in an industry where I have to write things that get read by the public. It just astounds me that WotC doesn't have a better handle on this in 2022.
The real issue with Spelljammer for me is that it's gotten savaged for being a bad gaming product in nearly every review I've read. Write professionally for the world of 2022, and make good gaming content.

Just ugh.