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

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm sure there's lots of noxious crap I wouldn't allow within 10 feet of my table, but I don't think my preferences are some sort of moral imperative.

I don't generally include slavery here n my games but have done so. PCs job was to stop the raids.

Also present in Dark Sun.

Villains gonna villain. What you're comfortable including in your game is up to you.

If I was gonna do a fantasy Aotearoa I wouldn't include humans at all replace them with Birffolk and lizardfolk and not base any of them on real life cultures.

Use geography for the setting so you would have volcanic plateaus, giant eagles and Dragons would exist based on geographic features.

Tongariro National Park

Red Dragon breeding ground.

 

[Zardnaar]

We used to play evil characters fairly often when we were younger. I have no interest anymore.

I like both my campaign and the ones I play In focused on more honorable benevolent protagonists.

But we do kick evil’s ass where possible and some bad guys derive others of liberty, murder etc.

It’s at our table but we strive against it. I in no way think that promotes it!

I think evil is kind of played out. Maybe as a backdrop like my recent Drow campaign.

Did an evil themed game once involving the Drow not exactly fun. Well see me parts were.

 

[Alzrius]

I assure you that the My Little Pony RPG has adequately horrible villains. That franchise has love-eating pod people.

Aw, what did Queen Chrysalis ever do to you?

 

[Incenjucar]

Aw, what did Queen Chrysalis ever do to you?

Replaced me with an angry piece of moldy swiss cheese.

 

[Irlo]

I assure you that the My Little Pony RPG has adequately horrible villains. That franchise has love-eating pod people.

Remind me to tell you about my Ponies of the Appaloosapocalypse campaign.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Wouldn't it be better, though, if every culture, including European ones, got treated better?

I hate all cultures equally.

 

[Faolyn]

I hate all cultures equally.

As long as they're all treated equally badly, then.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Now I rebember the rpg "7th Sea" was offensive for me because the church (even a fictional church) was showed as enemy of the science (that trope is totally false) and mentionating the inquisition could knock your door in the middle of the night (in the real life the most of people judged by the Spanish inquisition were ordinary criminals who blasphemed in lay trails because they would rather to be judged by the inqusition).

I am not happy with the movie "the woman king" because in the fiction they were anti-slavery but in the real life they were the opposite. They attacked their neighbours to catch slaves.

Usually preteens don't play D&D because rules are too complex, but if the DM is an adult, and this will worry about a kid-friendly tone.

When I was a child there were lots of "swords & sandals" movie with slave characters, and sometimes Christians killed in the Roman circus. I have said some time the slavery was showed in some episodes of the Legendary Journeys of Hercules and Xena the warrior princess. In an episode Lucy Liu was a fugitive slave. The slavery can be showed in the fiction, even for teenage audiences, but as something that is wrong, done by no-good people, and something has to be abolished. Aren't children allowed to see movies of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" when these are anti-slavery?

And the pirates were slaves-traffickers. You can't paint a romantic image of the pirates when these were criminals, with the hands tainted by blood of innocent people. And in the real life their attacks were the towns in the coasts because these were weaker to be protected. The Spanish ships traveled together in convoys to avoid the attacks of those pirates. And the famous pirate Barbarrosa was Otoman (with Greek blood).

 

[Clint_L]

I feel like when we've reached the point that people are seriously arguing about whether depictions of cannibalism are culturally insensitive or not, the topic has officially jumped the shark.

I mean, it probably did that on page 2, but it has now reached Kafkian levels of absurdity.

 

[MGibster]

Aren't children allowed to see movies of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" when these are anti-slavery?

Nobody watches or reads Uncle Tom's Cabin unless they're a student or a scholar in academia. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is more likely to have been read or a film adaptation watched by an American though there are controversies with that one surrounding the name of Jim.

And the pirates were slaves-traffickers. You can't paint a romantic image of the pirates when these were criminals, with the hands tainted by blood of innocent people.

We've romanticized and watered down pirates over the last few decades. Here's an example of a Disney pirates designed for children.

I'm pretty sure taking another person's property is what being a pirate is all about.