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

 

[The Glen]

Yup. Pretty much Traladarans in Mystara are a mixture of Bulgars, Serbs and Hungarians.

The Glantrians are even worse, a nation of wizards comprised of Spanish colonial elves, elfy elves, Scottish, French, Germans, Mongolians, Flemish, Borgia Italians, pale blue transdimensional humans and Transylvanians.

And they HATE each other.

 

[The Glen]

Out of interest @dajr how many RPG books exist regarding Polynesian Culture? I would imagine not a lot. If I think on Mystara, it was covered in the vaguest of ways via their island nations (Ierendi Isles and The Minrothad Guilds)

My feelings are books like these should highlight that there may be a financial market for that particular genre of RPG which would then be great so people like That Liam guy and others with some or a lot of knowledge on the topic produce more accurate content.

Ierendi was the Polynesian book, but it not considered one of the better ones due to the limited scope of the book. It was only 64 pages compared to the 96 pages the series would expand to next book. It does cover the Makai people in detail but too much of the book was done in a weird way focusing heavily on pop cultural references. Also needed some actual conflict as an island paradise can get boring.

 

[TheCultMachine]

Anti inclusion speech? This site is a joke. Ban me please. Here’s the majority of people on this site - “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

 

[Vaalingrade]

Ah, the fresh new insults of 2017.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Anti inclusion speech? This site is a joke. Ban me please. Here’s the majority of people on this site - “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

Mod Note:

 

[Argyle King]

This is a depressingly common mischaracterization of everyone involved.

Historically, the attempts at discussion haven't offered much to suggest otherwise.

Moments in this thread have been surprisingly better than most

 

[Faolyn]

What I've found unique in the D&D community is that there are two very vocal groups: one which says that nothing should ever be changed and sees no possible way that real people could be offended by content; the other which says that any sentience at all means something cannot be "evil" and that even one person being offended means that something needs to be removed from the game.

I haven't seen any of this at all. I can't think of a single time anyone has said "orcs can't be evil." I've seen plenty of people say that orcs shouldn't be Always Evil, that they should be treated as people, though. If you have the type of game where the players can go around slaughtering humans and elves and dwarfs for no reason at all (and it's not an evil PC game), then sure, go ahead and slaughter orcs too... but if your players need a decent reason to kill humans and elves and dwarfs, then they should also need a decent reason to kill orcs, too.

Secondly, I have never seen anyone say that one person being offended means something should be removed. Well, that's not true. I've seen people who have no issues with problematic content say "all it takes is one person to be offended for a thing to be removed," but they never actually provide any reason to believe that that's anything more than hyperbole.

I've also never seen people say that nothing should be changed. Even the people on this forum who hate change have said that they're fine with problematic content getting removed. Although I will admit to having seen an unfortunately large number of people say that if you claim something is bigot, it means you're the bigot.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Have you realised? I said I don't like the term "inclusive", because when it is said by certain people, I suspect it is going to mean the opposite. Then I suggested the term "cosmopolitan", and then other answered the reason because in the Russian society "cosmopolitan" is not a wellcome term. (I am Spanish, how could I know that happened in other country?) I guess this is an example of unitentional offenses. These may happen even when you try the best effort to be respectful.

* Other point is fictional races can be used by some players as allegories of groups from the real life. Let's use as example the formians. The can be used as "ersatz" of that neighbour country who tried to invade your land time ago.

 

[Staffan]

Two small issues-

First, for those who are not fully aware ... the term "cosmopolitan" has an unfortunate history. Combined with a specific adjective, it is a longstanding slur. But even the base word is often used as an anti-Semitic dog whistle.

 

[Morrus]

(I am Spanish, how could I know that happened in other country?)

Says somebody on the internet.