Firing everyone in the company and shuttering their doors is clearly too much. Wizards' public statement of culpability is insufficient. Where is the line of sufficient but not egregious?
I don't mean to tread on sensitive ground and my apologies if I am, but clinging to the source of offense and seeking to preserve it as a weapon against people who admitted the mistake and sought to make amends strikes me as perhaps not being the healthiest response. No one is saying anyone should forget what happened, but wallowing in it's not ideal either, I'd think?
I think a public apology and excising the problematic lore is fine, provided there are also reviews of existing procedures and internal changes to Wizards’ processes so this kind of thing does not happen again. I do not think we, as outsiders, need to know what those specific changes are, provided they happen and Wizards acknowledges they are going to try and make changes to do better moving forward. Wizards said they are doing that, so I think they hit their burden for now - time will only tell if there continue to be problems, and continued problems will require more aggressive responses to win back player trust.
Granted, if I were Wizards, I probably would have gone a step further - rather than simply excise the lore and replace it with a short blurb, I would have asked one of the amazingly talented Radiant Citadel writers to create some new lore. Then you are not only removing something problematic - you are giving an opportunity to one of the individuals directly harmed by the racism. “We are removing this for now, but expect a replacement from [name] in the coming weeks!” might put your mistake back in the news cycle for a second time (not great PR), but it also would show a tangible step to correct a grave error.
It's proof. When someone argues that WotC isn't steeped in white essentialism, I have the evidence on hand.
It's not like any of this stuff isn't well documented. If it's really unforgivable in your mind there's a simple well-known solution: don't buy their books. If you just want to register a protest, getting them to replace your book directly impacts their bottom line and will be far more visible to Wizards than keeping hold of your book.
Granted, if I were Wizards, I probably would have gone a step further - rather than simply excise the lore and replace it with a short blurb, I would have asked one of the amazingly talented Radiant Citadel writers to create some new lore.
That would take substantially longer, and it appears Wizards wanted to deal with the problem quickly.
I do think inviting a Radiant Citadel author to rework the hadozee lore would be a good step. And to be clear, if Wizards doesn't fix whatever allowed this to happen internally and bungles it again in the future, there needs to be a lot more than an apology and a promise to do better. I think this is their first real foot-in-mouth moment since Diversity and Dragons hit; there's been efforts to excise systemic racism that didn't work as well as they wanted, but this is the first time they just fell flat on their noses like this. If it doesn't happen again, that's one thing, but if it does then there needs to be much more pointed inquiries, I'd agree.
I have speculated that some racist element inside WoTC wanted to express their racism through the Hadozee, and didn't stop to think how the player base would actually respond to it.
Because the Hadozee description in the Unearthed Arcana was nowhere this bad.
i eat Some Hellish stuff. Insects, Flies, maggots, Tapeworms. plenty of people think I have Fallen off the deep end. I Vehemently disagree. my honor has been Extremely insulted.
I spent way to long on this. And frankly after doing the letter count at the start, I was like, I can bet money on what this is going to be. Also there was no intuitive vlc but.... at that point I was like you know what I bet if I search it ... yup I wont spoil it, because the code sleuth in me wouldn't do that. But I'm eyeing you.
I have speculated that some racist element inside WoTC wanted to express their racism through the Hadozee, and didn't stop to think how the player base would actually respond to it.
Because the Hadozee description in the Unearthed Arcana was nowhere this bad.
I have no reason to believe any of this was with racist intent. People often have mental stereotypes and biases that they aren't even aware of. It could also be complete coincidence. Racists have often likened African Americans to monkeys, and there's even a racial slur to that affect. So one needs to tread carefully when making a monkey-people D&D race. Maybe it's better just to not have one.
If I were designing one I would go with a Planet of the Apes vibe.
I think and hope that there are things being discussed and investigated at WotC about this incident. Because it may happen again and in the future they may decided to deal with it in a different way. ie one one extreme recall all books or on another simply issue an apology and some minor fix (free sticker to cover text or put on your computer screen).
I have speculated that some racist element inside WoTC wanted to express their racism through the Hadozee, and didn't stop to think how the player base would actually respond to it.
Because the Hadozee description in the Unearthed Arcana was nowhere this bad.
I have no reason to believe any of this was with racist intent. People often have mental stereotypes and biases that they aren't even aware of. It could also be complete coincidence. Racists have often likened African Americans to monkeys, and there's even a racial slur to that affect. So one needs to tread carefully when making a monkey-people D&D race. Maybe it's better just to not have one.
If I were designing one I would go with a Planet of the Apes vibe.
Perhaps so, perhaps not. We'll probably never know since I doubt someone at Wizards is going to loudly admit they made Hadozee with racist intent, but it does seem like that could be what happened.
What I'm completely shocked about is how this lore got past editing. How racist the lore was should have been recognized earlier and it should have been edited, all well before print.
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BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
I have speculated that some racist element inside WoTC wanted to express their racism through the Hadozee, and didn't stop to think how the player base would actually respond to it.
Because the Hadozee description in the Unearthed Arcana was nowhere this bad.
I have no reason to believe any of this was with racist intent. People often have mental stereotypes and biases that they aren't even aware of. It could also be complete coincidence. Racists have often likened African Americans to monkeys, and there's even a racial slur to that affect. So one needs to tread carefully when making a monkey-people D&D race. Maybe it's better just to not have one.
If I were designing one I would go with a Planet of the Apes vibe.
Perhaps so, perhaps not. We'll probably never know since I doubt someone at Wizards is going to loudly admit they made Hadozee with racist intent, but it does seem like that could be what happened.
What I'm completely shocked about is how this lore got past editing. How racist the lore was should have been recognized earlier and it should have been edited, all well before print.
Yeah, it certainly speaks to some serious problems in the company's editing process.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I have speculated that some racist element inside WoTC wanted to express their racism through the Hadozee, and didn't stop to think how the player base would actually respond to it.
Because the Hadozee description in the Unearthed Arcana was nowhere this bad.
I have no reason to believe any of this was with racist intent. People often have mental stereotypes and biases that they aren't even aware of. It could also be complete coincidence. Racists have often likened African Americans to monkeys, and there's even a racial slur to that affect. So one needs to tread carefully when making a monkey-people D&D race. Maybe it's better just to not have one.
If I were designing one I would go with a Planet of the Apes vibe.
Perhaps so, perhaps not. We'll probably never know since I doubt someone at Wizards is going to loudly admit they made Hadozee with racist intent, but it does seem like that could be what happened.
What I'm completely shocked about is how this lore got past editing. How racist the lore was should have been recognized earlier and it should have been edited, all well before print.
On a side note, so much of their art is just garbage in general. There are so many insanely good artists out there who would flip over the opportunity to be do official D&D art. It baffles me how so much of their art is just meh...
I have speculated that some racist element inside WoTC wanted to express their racism through the Hadozee, and didn't stop to think how the player base would actually respond to it.
Because the Hadozee description in the Unearthed Arcana was nowhere this bad.
I have no reason to believe any of this was with racist intent. People often have mental stereotypes and biases that they aren't even aware of. It could also be complete coincidence. Racists have often likened African Americans to monkeys, and there's even a racial slur to that affect. So one needs to tread carefully when making a monkey-people D&D race. Maybe it's better just to not have one.
If I were designing one I would go with a Planet of the Apes vibe.
Perhaps so, perhaps not. We'll probably never know since I doubt someone at Wizards is going to loudly admit they made Hadozee with racist intent, but it does seem like that could be what happened.
What I'm completely shocked about is how this lore got past editing. How racist the lore was should have been recognized earlier and it should have been edited, all well before print.
On a side note, so much of their art is just garbage in general. There are so many insanely good artists out there who would flip over the opportunity to be do official D&D art. It baffles me how so much of their art is just meh...
I personally love almost all of the art in official 5e books. There's a lot of amazing stuff. The only art in Spelljammer that I thought was legitimately bad (probably the fault of WotC, not the artist) was that of the Hadozee, due to how dumb their design looked.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
I have speculated that some racist element inside WoTC wanted to express their racism through the Hadozee, and didn't stop to think how the player base would actually respond to it.
Because the Hadozee description in the Unearthed Arcana was nowhere this bad.
I have no reason to believe any of this was with racist intent. People often have mental stereotypes and biases that they aren't even aware of. It could also be complete coincidence. Racists have often likened African Americans to monkeys, and there's even a racial slur to that affect. So one needs to tread carefully when making a monkey-people D&D race. Maybe it's better just to not have one.
If I were designing one I would go with a Planet of the Apes vibe.
Perhaps so, perhaps not. We'll probably never know since I doubt someone at Wizards is going to loudly admit they made Hadozee with racist intent, but it does seem like that could be what happened.
What I'm completely shocked about is how this lore got past editing. How racist the lore was should have been recognized earlier and it should have been edited, all well before print.
On a side note, so much of their art is just garbage in general. There are so many insanely good artists out there who would flip over the opportunity to be do official D&D art. It baffles me how so much of their art is just meh...
I personally love almost all of the art in official 5e books. There's a lot of amazing stuff. The only art in Spelljammer that I thought was legitimately bad (probably the fault of WotC, not the artist) was that of the Hadozee, due to how dumb their design looked.
This is all way off topic, but I like most of the art found in the D&D books, but I don't like the odd skin flap design of the Hadozee and I don't like the weird skinny cartoon cow look of the Minotaur from MMoM.
I do think inviting a Radiant Citadel author to rework the hadozee lore would be a good step. And to be clear, if Wizards doesn't fix whatever allowed this to happen internally and bungles it again in the future, there needs to be a lot more than an apology and a promise to do better. I think this is their first real foot-in-mouth moment since Diversity and Dragons hit; there's been efforts to excise systemic racism that didn't work as well as they wanted, but this is the first time they just fell flat on their noses like this. If it doesn't happen again, that's one thing, but if it does then there needs to be much more pointed inquiries, I'd agree.
I sort of support this, and they will need to get it right quickly, because Dragonlance's entire premise is built on a Race War, and extreme Racial divides. Having racism in the setting isn't a problem when handled correctly, it's when you use Racist sterotypes to further real world racism that it becomes a problem.
IMO They should have acknowledged their error, fired the guy who wrote it, put the person who approved it on a sensitivity training course, with a serious warning never to allow for this again. And then rewritten the background using many of the themes they had but not as a racist version, but from the point of view of an enslaved people who fought and gained their freedom with their own agency.
Ie wizard wanting a Slave Army finds a Sentient race of gliding simians, enslaves them, forces them to learn military tactics, they rebel and gain freedom for themselves.
I personally love almost all of the art in official 5e books. There's a lot of amazing stuff. The only art in Spelljammer that I thought was legitimately bad (probably the fault of WotC, not the artist) was that of the Hadozee, due to how dumb their design looked.
Cool, art is obviously subjective. I do think some of it is good, and I was being a bit hyperbolic when I called some of it 'garbage.'
Just an example, here's their Halfling. On technical merit it's okay, but not great. But I hate it based on concept. Halflings are supposed to be brave little bad@**es, and this art reduces them to being a happy little leprechaun joke.
Below is the old school version. Granted it's just a simple sketched and inked outline, but it really captures the flavor. Given their small size, some might not take them seriously. But they're as tough as anyone and your larger size means nothing to them.
I personally love almost all of the art in official 5e books. There's a lot of amazing stuff. The only art in Spelljammer that I thought was legitimately bad (probably the fault of WotC, not the artist) was that of the Hadozee, due to how dumb their design looked.
Cool, art is obviously subjective. I do think some of it is good, and I was being a bit hyperbolic when I called some of it 'garbage.'
Just an example, here's their Halfling. On technical merit it's okay, but not great. But I hate it based on concept. Halflings are supposed to be brave little bad@**es, and this art reduces them to being a happy little leprechaun joke.
Below is the old school version. Granted it's just a simple sketched and inked outline, but it really captures the flavor. Given their small size, some might not take them seriously. But they're as tough as anyone and your larger size means nothing to them.
I have never met anyone, even people that generally do like 5e art, that likes the 5e halfling art. I personally don't have strong feelings on it and I have never gotten why people love the older halfling art that much. But using the worst example to demonstrate "5e art sucks" is not a good argument.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
IMHO, things happen during the creation and editing of a product. I am not trying to provide cover for anything that has happened but lots of things could have happened. Such as writers from around the globe making content and not understanding how that would affect a specific region, under a tight deadline and having material submitted late and quickly reading it before editing it (again the author/editor and region could come into play), are but a couple of them. The more important thing is if the author/group did it with purpose or trying to be comedic in some way (note I do not think what happened was comedic). Then once WotC does some investigation what happens next? If there are issues I hope something happens and they say they took action but they do not need to say what action they took against who, ie just say we let 4 people go or we determined it was a computer hack or we decided to do nothing (I think this is unlikely but again there are a lot of things that could have gone on and I do not necessarily expect WotC to explain in detail exactly what they did every second of the investigation)
I personally love almost all of the art in official 5e books. There's a lot of amazing stuff. The only art in Spelljammer that I thought was legitimately bad (probably the fault of WotC, not the artist) was that of the Hadozee, due to how dumb their design looked.
Cool, art is obviously subjective. I do think some of it is good, and I was being a bit hyperbolic when I called some of it 'garbage.'
Just an example, here's their Halfling. On technical merit it's okay, but not great. But I hate it based on concept. Halflings are supposed to be brave little bad@**es, and this art reduces them to being a happy little leprechaun joke.
Below is the old school version. Granted it's just a simple sketched and inked outline, but it really captures the flavor. Given their small size, some might not take them seriously. But they're as tough as anyone and your larger size means nothing to them.
I have never met anyone, even people that generally do like 5e art, that likes the 5e halfling art. I personally don't have strong feelings on it and I have never gotten why people love the older halfling art that much. But using the worst example to demonstrate "5e art sucks" is not a good argument.
I mean I can go on, that was just the first that came to mind.
I personally love almost all of the art in official 5e books. There's a lot of amazing stuff. The only art in Spelljammer that I thought was legitimately bad (probably the fault of WotC, not the artist) was that of the Hadozee, due to how dumb their design looked.
Cool, art is obviously subjective. I do think some of it is good, and I was being a bit hyperbolic when I called some of it 'garbage.'
Just an example, here's their Halfling. On technical merit it's okay, but not great. But I hate it based on concept. Halflings are supposed to be brave little bad@**es, and this art reduces them to being a happy little leprechaun joke.
Below is the old school version. Granted it's just a simple sketched and inked outline, but it really captures the flavor. Given their small size, some might not take them seriously. But they're as tough as anyone and your larger size means nothing to them.
I have never met anyone, even people that generally do like 5e art, that likes the 5e halfling art. I personally don't have strong feelings on it and I have never gotten why people love the older halfling art that much. But using the worst example to demonstrate "5e art sucks" is not a good argument.
I'm Quoting my reply to this, so you can see the link to Esper the Bard, who does a video series that's really good on this subject. Not all the 5th ed art is bad, but in many ways it is lacking compared to past editions. IMO 4th edition was peek Lore and Art, even if the system was meh. I feel a lot of the creepiest and scariest art was done before Hasbro purchased WotC. The art these days feels sanitized a bit. ie that halfling feels like safe art. Were that old 1st edition art seems like it's something that could get them sued for Copyright issues, and feels a bit sexist at the same time.
I'm Quoting my reply to this, so you can see the link to Esper the Bard, who does a video series that's really good on this subject. Not all the 5th ed art is bad, but in many ways it is lacking compared to past editions. IMO 4th edition was peek Lore and Art, even if the system was meh. I feel a lot of the creepiest and scariest art was done before Hasbro purchased WotC. The art these days feels sanitized a bit. ie that halfling feels like safe art. Were that old 1st edition art seems like it's something that could get them sued for Copyright issues, and feels a bit sexist at the same time.
I'm watching that Esper video right now. It's really good! He very eloquently expresses the way I have also felt about 5E art.
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I think a public apology and excising the problematic lore is fine, provided there are also reviews of existing procedures and internal changes to Wizards’ processes so this kind of thing does not happen again. I do not think we, as outsiders, need to know what those specific changes are, provided they happen and Wizards acknowledges they are going to try and make changes to do better moving forward. Wizards said they are doing that, so I think they hit their burden for now - time will only tell if there continue to be problems, and continued problems will require more aggressive responses to win back player trust.
Granted, if I were Wizards, I probably would have gone a step further - rather than simply excise the lore and replace it with a short blurb, I would have asked one of the amazingly talented Radiant Citadel writers to create some new lore. Then you are not only removing something problematic - you are giving an opportunity to one of the individuals directly harmed by the racism. “We are removing this for now, but expect a replacement from [name] in the coming weeks!” might put your mistake back in the news cycle for a second time (not great PR), but it also would show a tangible step to correct a grave error.
It's not like any of this stuff isn't well documented. If it's really unforgivable in your mind there's a simple well-known solution: don't buy their books. If you just want to register a protest, getting them to replace your book directly impacts their bottom line and will be far more visible to Wizards than keeping hold of your book.
That would take substantially longer, and it appears Wizards wanted to deal with the problem quickly.
I do think inviting a Radiant Citadel author to rework the hadozee lore would be a good step. And to be clear, if Wizards doesn't fix whatever allowed this to happen internally and bungles it again in the future, there needs to be a lot more than an apology and a promise to do better. I think this is their first real foot-in-mouth moment since Diversity and Dragons hit; there's been efforts to excise systemic racism that didn't work as well as they wanted, but this is the first time they just fell flat on their noses like this. If it doesn't happen again, that's one thing, but if it does then there needs to be much more pointed inquiries, I'd agree.
Please do not contact or message me.
I have speculated that some racist element inside WoTC wanted to express their racism through the Hadozee, and didn't stop to think how the player base would actually respond to it.
Because the Hadozee description in the Unearthed Arcana was nowhere this bad.
hehehehehe. PM me your guess,I suppose.
N/A
I have no reason to believe any of this was with racist intent. People often have mental stereotypes and biases that they aren't even aware of. It could also be complete coincidence. Racists have often likened African Americans to monkeys, and there's even a racial slur to that affect. So one needs to tread carefully when making a monkey-people D&D race. Maybe it's better just to not have one.
If I were designing one I would go with a Planet of the Apes vibe.
I think and hope that there are things being discussed and investigated at WotC about this incident. Because it may happen again and in the future they may decided to deal with it in a different way. ie one one extreme recall all books or on another simply issue an apology and some minor fix (free sticker to cover text or put on your computer screen).
Perhaps so, perhaps not. We'll probably never know since I doubt someone at Wizards is going to loudly admit they made Hadozee with racist intent, but it does seem like that could be what happened.
What I'm completely shocked about is how this lore got past editing. How racist the lore was should have been recognized earlier and it should have been edited, all well before print.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.Yeah, it certainly speaks to some serious problems in the company's editing process.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
On a side note, so much of their art is just garbage in general. There are so many insanely good artists out there who would flip over the opportunity to be do official D&D art. It baffles me how so much of their art is just meh...
I personally love almost all of the art in official 5e books. There's a lot of amazing stuff. The only art in Spelljammer that I thought was legitimately bad (probably the fault of WotC, not the artist) was that of the Hadozee, due to how dumb their design looked.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
This is all way off topic, but I like most of the art found in the D&D books, but I don't like the odd skin flap design of the Hadozee and I don't like the weird skinny cartoon cow look of the Minotaur from MMoM.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I sort of support this, and they will need to get it right quickly, because Dragonlance's entire premise is built on a Race War, and extreme Racial divides. Having racism in the setting isn't a problem when handled correctly, it's when you use Racist sterotypes to further real world racism that it becomes a problem.
IMO They should have acknowledged their error, fired the guy who wrote it, put the person who approved it on a sensitivity training course, with a serious warning never to allow for this again. And then rewritten the background using many of the themes they had but not as a racist version, but from the point of view of an enslaved people who fought and gained their freedom with their own agency.
Ie wizard wanting a Slave Army finds a Sentient race of gliding simians, enslaves them, forces them to learn military tactics, they rebel and gain freedom for themselves.
Cool, art is obviously subjective. I do think some of it is good, and I was being a bit hyperbolic when I called some of it 'garbage.'
Just an example, here's their Halfling. On technical merit it's okay, but not great. But I hate it based on concept. Halflings are supposed to be brave little bad@**es, and this art reduces them to being a happy little leprechaun joke.
Below is the old school version. Granted it's just a simple sketched and inked outline, but it really captures the flavor. Given their small size, some might not take them seriously. But they're as tough as anyone and your larger size means nothing to them.
Esper the Bard does a great video series on this.
https://youtu.be/2cyqPgg9tEo
I have never met anyone, even people that generally do like 5e art, that likes the 5e halfling art. I personally don't have strong feelings on it and I have never gotten why people love the older halfling art that much. But using the worst example to demonstrate "5e art sucks" is not a good argument.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
IMHO, things happen during the creation and editing of a product. I am not trying to provide cover for anything that has happened but lots of things could have happened. Such as writers from around the globe making content and not understanding how that would affect a specific region, under a tight deadline and having material submitted late and quickly reading it before editing it (again the author/editor and region could come into play), are but a couple of them. The more important thing is if the author/group did it with purpose or trying to be comedic in some way (note I do not think what happened was comedic). Then once WotC does some investigation what happens next? If there are issues I hope something happens and they say they took action but they do not need to say what action they took against who, ie just say we let 4 people go or we determined it was a computer hack or we decided to do nothing (I think this is unlikely but again there are a lot of things that could have gone on and I do not necessarily expect WotC to explain in detail exactly what they did every second of the investigation)
Can not wait until this is past.
I mean I can go on, that was just the first that came to mind.
I'm Quoting my reply to this, so you can see the link to Esper the Bard, who does a video series that's really good on this subject. Not all the 5th ed art is bad, but in many ways it is lacking compared to past editions. IMO 4th edition was peek Lore and Art, even if the system was meh. I feel a lot of the creepiest and scariest art was done before Hasbro purchased WotC. The art these days feels sanitized a bit. ie that halfling feels like safe art. Were that old 1st edition art seems like it's something that could get them sued for Copyright issues, and feels a bit sexist at the same time.
I'm watching that Esper video right now. It's really good! He very eloquently expresses the way I have also felt about 5E art.