Anyways. I'm glad they got rid of things, but... I can't help but notice that they only mentioned removing content and not replacing it. Perhaps it's just misworded, but I honestly hope that they provide (appropriate) content to replace what was removed.
@Cyrasil - The language is similar, but there new version shifts some of the motivations of their species. In the initial version, it sort of passively notes that they took to the stars and left the predators behind; in the new version, it ascribes that as the actual motivation for wanting to go explore the stars. The new phrasing makes escaping predators the cause of their leaving; the prior phrasing was worded such that leaving the predators behind was incidental to their journey to the stars.
It is one of those slight changes to sentence structure that has a huge difference in terms of the strict meaning of the language. Granted, most folks do not look at grammatical structure with an exacting eye, so I am sure a fair number of folks are going to say “nah, they’re the same exact thing, just phrased two different ways.”
They probably could have done more - just like they did with the penguins - but this was an emergency hot fix done rapidly to get something more acceptable out, and they clearly decided they’d rather just have one errata than a hotfix and second, permanent version (which makes sense logistically - multiple errata documents can be a bit unwieldy to folks trying to track updates to their paper versions) The changes made in the rest of the errata document are probably more indicative of what the design process will look like moving forward - making small changes with lore additions during editing (with us never seeing the first draft, so being none the wiser about what is “missing” from the final versions).
I feel that WOTC cares more about making a politicly correct game than making a good game. I personally would rather have a good game.
The two are not mutually exclusive, that’s the misunderstanding right there. Turns out it can be both.
Also, a game with racism baked into the system (accidental as it likely was) is pretty much, by definition, not good anymore. It’s certainly not good if you’re black.
People who want to play a game with lots of unavoidable parallels to real-world racism can go ahead and do that. Insert it all you want. For the rest of us, it’s time to leave that behind.
I feel that WOTC cares more about making a politicly correct game
If by "politicly [sic] correct" you mean compassionate toward people, then I would agree with you. There's nothing political about trying not to hurt people. And that you think there is kind of says something about you.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I feel that WOTC cares more about making a politicly correct game
If by "politicly [sic] correct" you mean compassionate toward people, then I would agree with you. There's nothing political about trying not to hurt people. And that you think there is kind of says something about you.
The other part is what does it say about a person when they see an animal or monster and assign a race to them? There is always two sides to an issue. I kicked a guy out of my table for going into that garbage with a mixed race table. We don't want politics at the table and that skews decidedly to one group and it doesn't play well in a lower middle class mixed area at all. Most people just want to roll dice and ignore social media controversies at the table, including the garbage on the hadoozee.
I feel that WOTC cares more about making a politicly correct game
If by "politicly [sic] correct" you mean compassionate toward people, then I would agree with you. There's nothing political about trying not to hurt people. And that you think there is kind of says something about you.
The other part is what does it say about a person when they see an animal or monster and assign a race to them? There is always two sides to an issue. I kicked a guy out of my table for going into that garbage with a mixed race table. We don't want politics at the table and that skews decidedly to one group and it doesn't play well in a lower middle class mixed area at all.
The assignment in question happened centuries ago and is still present today. Those speaking out against it are not inventing it, they are recognizing its existence is still hurtful.
I feel that WOTC cares more about making a politicly correct game
If by "politicly [sic] correct" you mean compassionate toward people, then I would agree with you. There's nothing political about trying not to hurt people. And that you think there is kind of says something about you.
The other part is what does it say about a person when they see an animal or monster and assign a race to them? There is always two sides to an issue. I kicked a guy out of my table for going into that garbage with a mixed race table. We don't want politics at the table and that skews decidedly to one group and it doesn't play well in a lower middle class mixed area at all.
The assignment in question happened centuries ago and is still present today. Those speaking out against it are not inventing it, they are recognizing its existence is still hurtful.
So the Vorta from DS9 truly hurt you? Explain why. The wizard in my eye was black who did the uplifting no issues for me. What did you assume something else? If you did why, and why was it problematic enough for you to take offense.
The Hadozee were a poorly planned, poorly written, and poorly executed attempt to make the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz a playable race. That they needed to be changed is beyond dispute. That they should inspire the creation of a sieve of inclusivity through which all past and future content will filter is an overreaction and a mistake.
The Hadozee were a poorly planned, poorly written, and poorly executed attempt to make the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz a playable race. That they needed to be changed is beyond dispute. That they should inspire the creation of a sieve of inclusivity through which all past and future content will filter is an overreaction and a mistake.
Actually, they were making the yazarian from star frontiers, but I agree with the rest.
The Hadozee were a poorly planned, poorly written, and poorly executed attempt to make the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz a playable race. That they needed to be changed is beyond dispute. That they should inspire the creation of a sieve of inclusivity through which all past and future content will filter is an overreaction and a mistake.
I can almost guarantee you the writer was a DS9 fan and just lifted the story from the Vorta. And I'm sure the Vorta was lifted from another writer and so on and so on. There are no new ideas, just repackaged ideas. I guess we got to send the cultural committee to Paramount+ now.
I feel that WOTC cares more about making a politicly correct game
If by "politicly [sic] correct" you mean compassionate toward people, then I would agree with you. There's nothing political about trying not to hurt people. And that you think there is kind of says something about you.
The other part is what does it say about a person when they see an animal or monster and assign a race to them? There is always two sides to an issue. I kicked a guy out of my table for going into that garbage with a mixed race table. We don't want politics at the table and that skews decidedly to one group and it doesn't play well in a lower middle class mixed area at all.
The assignment in question happened centuries ago and is still present today. Those speaking out against it are not inventing it, they are recognizing its existence is still hurtful.
So the Vorta from DS9 truly hurt you? Explain why. The wizard in my eye was black who did the uplifting no issues for me. What did you assume something else? If you did why, and why was it problematic enough for you to take offense.
Whataboutism is a sure sign your argument doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
I feel that WOTC cares more about making a politicly correct game
If by "politicly [sic] correct" you mean compassionate toward people, then I would agree with you. There's nothing political about trying not to hurt people. And that you think there is kind of says something about you.
The other part is what does it say about a person when they see an animal or monster and assign a race to them? There is always two sides to an issue. I kicked a guy out of my table for going into that garbage with a mixed race table. We don't want politics at the table and that skews decidedly to one group and it doesn't play well in a lower middle class mixed area at all.
The assignment in question happened centuries ago and is still present today. Those speaking out against it are not inventing it, they are recognizing its existence is still hurtful.
So the Vorta from DS9 truly hurt you? Explain why. The wizard in my eye was black who did the uplifting no issues for me. What did you assume something else? If you did why, and why was it problematic enough for you to take offense.
Whataboutism is a sure sign your argument doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Personally I do not care for people who assign a race to a fantasy being. To a lot of people that is extremely racist.
"Just write your own lore" sure is a mantra that's going to get me excited for future D&D products.
Or use Spelljammer 2E lore and be happier than 5E. For the same price you get a lot more lore, a functioning world and just add in Wildjammer and you got functioning Spelljammer for 5E.
And yes the mods should post a ban on the Hadoozee from here on out, its never going to end well. I don't like racism and to me assigning a race to a monster isn't going to sit well and I know some kids were taught to do that, and it makes me vomit. There are two sides to the issue and they aren't going to see eye to eye and its going to cost D&D sales.
It is rather hard to take your posts seriously when you are advocating for your own dislike of racism and wilfully ignoring extremely obvious parallels to historical symbolism, historical racist narratives, and modern-day racial stereotypes that cause measurable decreases in minority medical outcomes. I would love to give you the benefit of the doubt and take you at your word - but I know you were active on other threads where reality was explained to you, so I also know your refusal to see facts is intentional.
And, sure, you can “disagree” with me - though I again doubt the sincerity of such disagreement - but it ultimately doesn’t matter. There is not “two sides” to this question - there is one, Wizards’. Wizards deemed their content to be racist and fixed it—and I’m going to trust an author’s admission of a mistake over the arguments made by someone defending something the author does not want defended.
I'm shocked and appalled. I accept that D&D monetizes things in the public domain but this borders on plagiarism. It also helps explain the dramatic decrease in the overall quality of 5e material published since 2020. Are they so bereft of ideas that they now have to steal them? Must we revive the antiquated notion of prohibition (Simpsons joke)? Channel 6 says yes (not really)!
If your "side" is that the people who speak up about being hurt are the ones at fault, then it is not a conscionable one and you should feel bad for being on it.
I'm going to quote my earlier post for those who missed it (or chose to ignore it)
This isn't a matter for debate; the D&D community spoke up and spoke to Wizards of the Coast and said "This is problematic and harmful. This hurts us the community. This is regurgitation of the harm we have experienced" and they were correct. This is not "cancelling culture" because it's not real, it's not culture, it's a fiction for a fantasy game. What is real is the voices of the people that have too long been made to be silent, the voices that Wizards of the Coast are listening to. "Acceptance" of harmful content does not promote diversity, it promotes hate. These changes are not "anti-diversity", they are pro-doing better, they are pro-listening, they are pro-paying attention to those long ignored.
These changes are the right direction and the moderation team will broker no compromise on that. If you disagree, then you may take your disagreement to one of the many corners of the internet where people who disagree with listening to marginalised people, who disagree with being accountable for the harm they have caused, who disagree with the idea that there exists more than their narrow view of the world gather. Because it's not welcome here.
D&D is for everybody and these are the steps that are being taken to ensure that.
And just so this is crystal clear, I am speaking as a moderator on this matter.
And just so things are clear and explicit, from this point out anyone failing to heed the above will receive appropriate forum infractions that may results in temporary bans. While discussion of the changes is welcome, discussion of the following is not:
The validity, virtue, or necessity of the changes made by Wizards of the Coast at the behest of the community
Stating, suggesting, or implying that calling out racism makes you the racist
The notion that the safety and inclusivity of marginalised members of the D&D community is less important that anything as trivial as lore or mechanics
Suggestions that people who are hurt, harmed, offended, or negatively impacted by content in the game should "play something else"
Suggesting that people "can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality" or claiming that fiction cannot affect reality (if you believe this, I suggest you look up the concept of a parable or a fable)
The moderation team is empowered to enforce the Site Rules & Guidelines, as well as the principles that D&D and by extension the D&D Beyond forums should be a space for everyone of all backgrounds and identities. This empowerment includes removal of posts that violate these guidelines and principles, as well as restricting users ability to post. You are not entitled to participate on these forums if you choose to do so in a way that spreads exclusion, hate, and harm. The internet is a big place and there are plenty of other sites you can go to for that.
I wholeheartedly agree.
@Cyrasil - The language is similar, but there new version shifts some of the motivations of their species. In the initial version, it sort of passively notes that they took to the stars and left the predators behind; in the new version, it ascribes that as the actual motivation for wanting to go explore the stars. The new phrasing makes escaping predators the cause of their leaving; the prior phrasing was worded such that leaving the predators behind was incidental to their journey to the stars.
It is one of those slight changes to sentence structure that has a huge difference in terms of the strict meaning of the language. Granted, most folks do not look at grammatical structure with an exacting eye, so I am sure a fair number of folks are going to say “nah, they’re the same exact thing, just phrased two different ways.”
They probably could have done more - just like they did with the penguins - but this was an emergency hot fix done rapidly to get something more acceptable out, and they clearly decided they’d rather just have one errata than a hotfix and second, permanent version (which makes sense logistically - multiple errata documents can be a bit unwieldy to folks trying to track updates to their paper versions) The changes made in the rest of the errata document are probably more indicative of what the design process will look like moving forward - making small changes with lore additions during editing (with us never seeing the first draft, so being none the wiser about what is “missing” from the final versions).
I feel that WOTC cares more about making a politicly correct game than making a good game.
I personally would rather have a good game.
The two are not mutually exclusive, that’s the misunderstanding right there. Turns out it can be both.
Also, a game with racism baked into the system (accidental as it likely was) is pretty much, by definition, not good anymore. It’s certainly not good if you’re black.
People who want to play a game with lots of unavoidable parallels to real-world racism can go ahead and do that. Insert it all you want. For the rest of us, it’s time to leave that behind.
If by "politicly [sic] correct" you mean compassionate toward people, then I would agree with you. There's nothing political about trying not to hurt people. And that you think there is kind of says something about you.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The other part is what does it say about a person when they see an animal or monster and assign a race to them? There is always two sides to an issue. I kicked a guy out of my table for going into that garbage with a mixed race table. We don't want politics at the table and that skews decidedly to one group and it doesn't play well in a lower middle class mixed area at all. Most people just want to roll dice and ignore social media controversies at the table, including the garbage on the hadoozee.
The assignment in question happened centuries ago and is still present today. Those speaking out against it are not inventing it, they are recognizing its existence is still hurtful.
So the Vorta from DS9 truly hurt you? Explain why. The wizard in my eye was black who did the uplifting no issues for me. What did you assume something else? If you did why, and why was it problematic enough for you to take offense.
The Hadozee were a poorly planned, poorly written, and poorly executed attempt to make the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz a playable race. That they needed to be changed is beyond dispute. That they should inspire the creation of a sieve of inclusivity through which all past and future content will filter is an overreaction and a mistake.
Actually, they were making the yazarian from star frontiers, but I agree with the rest.
I can almost guarantee you the writer was a DS9 fan and just lifted the story from the Vorta. And I'm sure the Vorta was lifted from another writer and so on and so on. There are no new ideas, just repackaged ideas. I guess we got to send the cultural committee to Paramount+ now.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Vorta
Whataboutism is a sure sign your argument doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Personally I do not care for people who assign a race to a fantasy being. To a lot of people that is extremely racist.
Aaaaand, here we go again for a second time...😒
"Just write your own lore" sure is a mantra that's going to get me excited for future D&D products.
Did, or did not, Davyd say that this argument was verboten?
Knock it off.
Please do not contact or message me.
It is rather hard to take your posts seriously when you are advocating for your own dislike of racism and wilfully ignoring extremely obvious parallels to historical symbolism, historical racist narratives, and modern-day racial stereotypes that cause measurable decreases in minority medical outcomes. I would love to give you the benefit of the doubt and take you at your word - but I know you were active on other threads where reality was explained to you, so I also know your refusal to see facts is intentional.
And, sure, you can “disagree” with me - though I again doubt the sincerity of such disagreement - but it ultimately doesn’t matter. There is not “two sides” to this question - there is one, Wizards’. Wizards deemed their content to be racist and fixed it—and I’m going to trust an author’s admission of a mistake over the arguments made by someone defending something the author does not want defended.
I'm shocked and appalled. I accept that D&D monetizes things in the public domain but this borders on plagiarism. It also helps explain the dramatic decrease in the overall quality of 5e material published since 2020. Are they so bereft of ideas that they now have to steal them? Must we revive the antiquated notion of prohibition (Simpsons joke)? Channel 6 says yes (not really)!
It has taken me many posts to figure out what on earth you are even talking about. To clarify, you seem to be saying that people who were hurt by the racist caricatures that were present in the Hadozee lore are somehow making it up, are the actual racists, and are being offensive themselves? Because if so, then 1) you are dreadfully wrong, wrongheaded, and actively contributing to a system that harms people whether you realize it or not and 2) I will refer you back to Davyd's post where he speaks with the weight of a moderator that your position is contrary to the official position of Wizards of the Coast and NOT WELCOME on these forums.
If your "side" is that the people who speak up about being hurt are the ones at fault, then it is not a conscionable one and you should feel bad for being on it.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
I'm going to quote my earlier post for those who missed it (or chose to ignore it)
And just so things are clear and explicit, from this point out anyone failing to heed the above will receive appropriate forum infractions that may results in temporary bans. While discussion of the changes is welcome, discussion of the following is not:
The moderation team is empowered to enforce the Site Rules & Guidelines, as well as the principles that D&D and by extension the D&D Beyond forums should be a space for everyone of all backgrounds and identities. This empowerment includes removal of posts that violate these guidelines and principles, as well as restricting users ability to post. You are not entitled to participate on these forums if you choose to do so in a way that spreads exclusion, hate, and harm. The internet is a big place and there are plenty of other sites you can go to for that.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here