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

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

"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.

Sounds like the Forgotten Realms to me! Americans are not really any better at writing European-inspired fantasy settings than they are writing Asian-inspired fantasy settings.

 

[Morrus]

Sounds like the Forgotten Realms to me! Americans are not really any better at writing European-inspired fantasy settings than they are writing Asian-inspired fantasy settings.

Yeah.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

More like in American movies you have goodies and baddies a lot of the time.

tell me you never watched game of thrones without telling me you never watched game of thrones...
I think your idea of american is just a fraction of our stuff... John Wick is a hired killer, we cheer for aliens and predators, horror movies are all about the monster
then there is breaking bad, american psycho, this is far from an exhaustive list

NZ stuff is more warts and all. The movie clip Iinked earlier has you have sympathy for a wife beater and actively cheer for him later in the movie. That movie was a very heavy movie and was a big hit here, rave reviews.

we do antiheroes and villain protagonists, have you heard they are making a sequel to the joker?

So a lot of Hollywood stuff coming out last 5 years to us can feel very forced and just badly done.

The author of the book based it off his life experiences from his youth.

again maybe you just watch only 1 kind of american movie

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

If I were to read a RPG book which featured "This setting reflects European culture", I'd be wary. From Ireland to the Urals, really? Caveat emptor.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If I were to read a RPG book which featured "This setting reflects European culture", I'd be wary. From Ireland to the Urals, really? Caveat emptor.

I can't imagine "this setting reflect the north east of the USA" let alone whole continents...

 

[AnotherGuy]

tell me you never watched game of thrones without telling me you never watched game of thrones...
I think your idea of american is just a fraction of our stuff... John Wick is a hired killer, we cheer for aliens and predators, horror movies are all about the monster
then there is breaking bad, american psycho, this is far from an exhaustive list

we do antiheroes and villain protagonists, have you heard they are making a sequel to the joker?

again maybe you just watch only 1 kind of american movie

You missed this line of his
So a lot of Hollywood stuff coming out last 5 years to us can feel very forced and just badly done.

EDIT: Its funny you mention GoT. So your David Benioff and D.B. Weiss garbaged the storyline pretty much from season 5 onwards. That is the talent that we're seeing coming from Hollywood these days. And Disney is no better.

 

[MGibster]

so you agree it's best to leave that stuff out?

I was asking you. No, I don't think it's best to leave that stuff out. I think it's best practice for a game designer to consider what kind of experience they wish to provide their audience and make any decisions based on that. The fact that some people might be triggered by the inclusion of something doesn't automatically mean it should be excluded. Does slavery belong in D&D? I think so. So long as the slavers are clearly depicted as the bad guys the PCs are meant to defeat I think it's fine.

 

[Zardnaar]

tell me you never watched game of thrones without telling me you never watched game of thrones...
I think your idea of american is just a fraction of our stuff... John Wick is a hired killer, we cheer for aliens and predators, horror movies are all about the monster
then there is breaking bad, american psycho, this is far from an exhaustive list

we do antiheroes and villain protagonists, have you heard they are making a sequel to the joker?

again maybe you just watch only 1 kind of american movie

No main point is that what is offensive to Americans isn't offensive here or at least having it depicted.

Slavery here wasn't racial based it was intervtribal warfare.

So depending on how a movie or rpg book was made is wouldn't automatically be offensive because it included slavery.

It might be offensive depending on how it was portrayed. Even then is still might offend someone. Arts been doing that for a long time though history will be the judge of it's artistic merit.

But we have got people here saying oh no you can't make that.

An NZ cultural sensitivity reader could sign off on something an American one wouldn't. That work could conceivably include slavery or cannibalism I was literally having this conversation with one of my players the other day who was telling me about his iwi and the context of some of the things that happened.

 

[Incenjucar]

American companies in particular have different priorities on depictions based on the global distribution of much of our media and the history and makeup of our local populations, plus the impact of local politics and the money that controls it. A lot of the feel of sanitization comes from needing to market to non-Americans in addition to Americans, and a variety of religious sensibilities, and the fact that "Americans" are quite diverse on top of that. Some of it is silly, like the prudishness, while some of it is great, like trying to reign in insults to vulnerable populations.

However, if you look outside of mass market stuff, you can find just about anything you can imagine, like anywhere else.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Even without the racial component... slavery is owning another person. It's offensive.

And remember that this line of discussion also included cannibalism. Are we honestly this far gone that there's cannibalism apologia?