7 ms·

WotC: "We want to avoid hateful content, that's all!" Also WotC: creates highly racist caricatures of an enslaved race (Hadozee) in an official book

• Brigand 4y ago
  What is racist about inventing a fantasy race in a fantasy world? Please elaborate.
  • msoucy 4y ago
    This post[1] explains it better than I have the mental energy or experience to [1]: https://www.polygon.com/23330621/dnd-spelljammer-hadozee-racist https://www.polygon.com/23330621/dnd-spelljammer-hadozee-rac...
    • spoiler 4y ago
      I don't know how I feel about that analysis. Just because something is inspired by historic events (slavery in this case), doesn't mean it's advocating those events as good. Is it dark? Yes, and I think it's meant to be. If anything, I think it's actually great that they're doing this because I believe RPG games are a great and safe mediums to acquaint people with these difficult subjects. I can't be the only person with this opinion? Are people calling Marvel racists or anti-Semitic because Hydra was inspires by some parts of the Nazi military being obsessed with the supernatural? I think calling these racists (or xist) is a failure of imagination; kinda weird to see it come from the RPG community, too
      • wardedVibe 4y ago
        The analogy says black people were subhuman until they were magically uplifted. That's the offensive part. Contrast that with the gith, another slave race that broke their bonds. Just as gritty, but not racist.
        • jeegsy 4y ago
          The analogy itself is the problem. If I wanted to assign a racism value to the creation of a fantasy race with certain characteristics and the resulting analogy by some to black people in this instance, the analogy would always have a higher racism value.
          • wardedVibe 4y ago
            Yeah, that's why its a gross trope that needs to die.
          • spoiler 4y ago
            But, I don't think the analogy to black slavery is meant to be there. It seems to me that some people just want (or need) it to be there. Also, at the risk of being painted a heretic/racists/whatever. I'm not sure why the focus is so much on just black slavery; is it because it was most recent, or is it because of the current zeitgeist? Is it an American thing? Is it the "monkey" part and because some racist rednecks call black people monkeys? I find it mortifying we're giving those people so much influence over a fantasy world they're probably not even aware of.
            • jeegsy 4y ago
              > Is it the "monkey" part and because some racist rednecks call black people monkeys? Ding! You hit the nail on the head! To be succinct, if you hear monkey and think black people, then you are a racist regardless of any good intentions you may or may not have.
              • spoiler 4y ago
                But why are we letting those people control our games? That's what's insane to me in this whole discussion. It reminds me of the ok hand emoji kerfuffle; where it was briefly racist/taboo to use it. I think it's total madness to let people I disagree with influence my fantasy world games. Why give them that power? Maybe I don't get it because I'm not American and this is a cultural issue specific to the US (and the majority of people here, I assume, are American).
      • honkycat 4y ago
        The tone of the spelljammer setting is not dark. It is more marketed towards kids in its latest iteration. I think people just don't want to deal with slavery and race bullshit in their fantasy setting, which I understand. So it's just annoying and tone deaf and doesn't add anything, plus the fact they are simian and transported on tall ships and auctioned off as slaves. If you can't see why someone would would say "wow, a slave monkey race transported on ships. That sucks." Then you aren't arguing in good faith. It is not that much of a stretch to see it as a little demeaning. Depictions od people of color as animalistic is undeniably a thing people used to do to be demeaning to them. So I would argue you are having a failing of imagination.
        • spoiler 4y ago
          Lol I think you spend too much time reading social media... I honestly doubt someone wrote this because they want to degraded black people using a far fetched analogy. It feels to me like a small group of people really wants this to be perceived as racist for some reason. Like, don't get me wrong. I'm familiar with racist rednecks calling black people "monkeys," but I see no reason we need to give so much power to some small part of American culture and let it transfer into a fantasy world. What's infuriating is that those racist reprobates are probably not even aware of this situation, and we gave them so much influence. Anyway, I wanted to write a more extensive reply initially, but then I felt like you've probably already painted me as a witch/heretic/racist in your head, and don't care about what I have to say. So, let's just agree to disagree and move on with our lives.
    • adamrezich 4y ago
      outsourcing personal opinions wholesale to articles that others have written, without being able to reformulate/articulate said opinions in your own words, does not make for an especially compelling argument.
      • mynameisvlad 4y ago
        Do you have anything to saw about the actual opinion? If you had read the article provided, you'd have also seen that Wizards agrees with the opinion and has modified their backstory: https://www.polygon.com/23339180/dnd-spelljammer-racist-hadozee-apology-errata https://www.polygon.com/23339180/dnd-spelljammer-racist-hado...
        • adamrezich 4y ago
          I don't care what WotC thinks, I don't care what Polygon writers think, and I don't care to argue about something as volatile yet useless as drawing comparisons between real-world races and fantasy races, because I also think that's all really, really stupid and tiring, and being offended on the behalf of others is not a very productive use of my time.
          • mynameisvlad 4y ago
            > Do you have anything to saw about the actual opinion? So, no, you just have stuff to say about who is making the opinion and that it's "not a productive use of your time" to argue about it. For something not being a productive use of your time, you sure are dedicating an awful lot of time being contrarian to it.
            • adamrezich 4y ago
              I wrote two short replies expressing my thoughts using entirely my own words. it probably took me less than four minutes to write both comments plus this one. I'm not sure what you're trying to prove, other than your frustration at my unwillingness to engage with these tired, played-out contemporary-politicization-of-fantasy talking points?
  • Communitivity 4y ago
    An enslaved monkey race that rose up to fling off the chains of their evil Wizard master.. I am paraphrasing, but not by much. Slave race of monkey-like humanoids. That never should have made it past the editor in this day an age.
    • Brigand 4y ago
      I don’t know of a monkey-like humanoids in the real world. Humans look very much different from monkeys, esp from the ones in the illustrations. That is really a long shot. I really don’t follow this, on a similar absurd reasoning one could claim elves in lotr are racist because the have light skin. It’s just a story set in a fantasy world. If you mean to it’s always possible to twist anything into being offensive.
      • honkycat 4y ago
        They also implied the monkey people, who were transported via spelljammer ships, were actioned off. I mean I don't care that much but it was a little tone deaf. The real problem was there was a rules bug that let them move insanely fast
      • thebooktocome 4y ago
        > Humans look very much different from monkeys Didn't stop generations of racists from making offensive comparisons. Doesn't stop them from continuing to do so. Racism's value system doesn't care about rationality or truth. > On a similar absurd reasoning one could claim elves in lotr are racist because the have light skin. Amusingly enough, Tolkien did in fact hold racist beliefs, despite his fervent opposition to the Nazis during WWII. Both of those things can be and are true. His elves are very explicitly Old Norse expys (read his letters if you don't believe me) and his constant fawning over them (as pale, beautiful, skilled, and wise) in contrast to orcs (as dark-skinned, ugly, brutish, and enslaved) was criticized then and is still criticized now. > If you mean to it's always possible to twist anything into being offensive. It is justified to take offense at something that is, in fact, offensive.
        • 4y ago
  • falcolas 4y ago
    If you could replace the fantasy race with a real-world race and not have to change any other thing, it's probably never going to be received well by modern society. With one notable exception: if it's merely the starting point of a campaign to enact major change (perhaps also if used as a vehicle to display how bad the system really is).
    • Brigand 4y ago
      You could replace the orcs in lotr with the germans, and their leader as sauron. Does that make lotr racist? I don’t think so.
      • falcolas 4y ago
        Do a quick google search for LOTR and racism, and you'll find for yourself that the line isn't quite so clear. That said, I"m fairly sure you'd have to change a number of things to make "goblins/orcs" match up with real world Germans (such as the cannibalism) But it's been some years since I read LOTR.
  • stubish 4y ago
    Nothing is racist about inventing a fantasy race in a fantasy world. One of the reasons we have fantasy and science fiction is it allows us to discuss difficult real world topics in a setting that hopefully avoids the real world biases. I think what people find racist about this situation is that the scenario is obviously mirroring black slavery (fine, it still needs to be discussed), and that the race the authors chose to stand in for blacks are a racial caricature of blacks (monkeys, real world racist dehumanization as used by real world white supremacists and real world history, generally considered sub-human). End result is you get to discuss slavery and racism of sub-humans, which probably isn't what the creators intended, but the sort of thing we got wrong in the 90s. And probably should be fixed in updates like this if you want to keep your IP and franchise alive and not join the masses of media that 'hasn't aged well'.