How am I wrong? 5e is more vulnerable than it's ever been in its lifetime to hateful people and bad actors. Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
We're not welcome in D&D anymore.
I understand why you might not believe me, Yurei1453, but:
You and your friends are welcome in my game any time. I also publicly assert that, if you want me to, I will come to your side against bad actors as loudly and clearly as I did on the OGL issue. You belong here, as long as you want to be here. Hate does not.
Diverse opinions and people are a boon to any community.
Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
There are other legal organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union or Legal Defense Fund that specialize in such cases that Wizards of the Coast are incapable of.
How am I wrong? 5e is more vulnerable than it's ever been in its lifetime to hateful people and bad actors. Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
We're not welcome in D&D anymore.
Not necessarily true, under the CC-BY-4.0 license and notice:
No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
The CC license does a far better job of public protection than anything Wotc could manage, given the recent events. Everyone is welcomed in D&D regardless of lifestyle, and everyone will be held to a global standard of human rights, decency, and inclusion.
Today, January 27th 2023 is not a day of victory, but a point in time where we can collectively sit down together and work on making D&D better for the next 50 years.
I don't want ableists, homophobes, racists, or transphobes to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community just as much as I don't want Hasbro to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community, and Hasbro just freed up a lot of time for me.
I don't want ableists, homophobes, racists, or transphobes to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community just as much as I don't want Hasbro to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community, and Hasbro just freed up a lot of time for me.
I don't want ableists, homophobes, racists, or transphobes to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community just as much as I don't want Hasbro to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community, and Hasbro just freed up a lot of time for me.
just dont play with them lmao
I don't, silly goose, but thank you for the suggestion.
I don't want ableists, homophobes, racists, or transphobes to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community just as much as I don't want Hasbro to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community, and Hasbro just freed up a lot of time for me.
just dont play with them lmao
I don't, silly goose, but thank you for the suggestion.
You're such a big helper.
happy to help
genuinely dont get why people are upset at all about this
I don't want ableists, homophobes, racists, or transphobes to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community just as much as I don't want Hasbro to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community, and Hasbro just freed up a lot of time for me.
just dont play with them lmao
I don't, silly goose, but thank you for the suggestion.
You're such a big helper.
happy to help
genuinely dont get why people are upset at all about this
just dont talk to them lol
That’s not how harmful comments and hateful people work. seeing it, knowing it is there is harmful to people that it effects. You must keep in mind, we aren’t talking about teasing or goofing on people. And we are not talking about people who have necessarily lived a safe experience. We are talking about people who are attacked verbally and sometimes physically for just being themselves. When we allow people to say those things we allow victimization. When we tell people to just ignore it, we trivialize their experience.
How am I wrong? 5e is more vulnerable than it's ever been in its lifetime to hateful people and bad actors. Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
We're not welcome in D&D anymore.
That's quite a take. It assumes that it was Wizards' responsibility to mount such legal efforts against "peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusion" to begin with, which it never was. And now you say you and your helpless friends are the victims of this entire community? That is downright comical. Bravo. Haven't laughed that hard in a while.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron Satie
How am I wrong? 5e is more vulnerable than it's ever been in its lifetime to hateful people and bad actors. Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
We're not welcome in D&D anymore.
You haven't thought this through at all lol
Do you think WotC actually has the legal bandwidth to prosecute against 'peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism'? Ignore whether or not it's morally virtuous or not; they don't have the capacity.
Just at a glance it would be trivially easy for someone to produce a piece of 'hateful' content and publish it. If it gets revoked, republish it with a trivial distinction. Or run it through an AI algorithm and tell it to replace all of the X stereotypes with Y stereotypes. You can do this as many times as you like without significant effort and without penalty. WotC would be playing an unwinnable game of whack-a-mole.
And because people like you expect this to actually do anything against genuinely hateful actors, you've put WotC in the worst position possible; they have the responsibility to bring the hammer down on hateful content, but no real power to do so.
The alternative - and the only sensible option - is for WotC to forgo the responsibility and place it on you. Are you able to grow up, accept that some people aren't going to like you no matter what you do, and have fun with a game? Every sensible adult in the world has already realized that not everybody likes them.
How am I wrong? 5e is more vulnerable than it's ever been in its lifetime to hateful people and bad actors. Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
We're not welcome in D&D anymore.
Much of this was precipitated by the nuTSR Star Frontiers racist mess. Do you know who posted excerpts and raised the awareness of it so that the public and WotC knew how racist it was? The community.
In the lawsuit by WotC against nuTSR, who literally compiled the majority of the evidence against nuTSR that WotC lawyers built nearly all of their evidence Exhibits from? The community. (There are threads showing the lawsuit. Go read them. Much of the evidence is literally community compiled.)
Who has highlighted WotC's own repeated issues with discrimination and offensive content? The community.
Who has been educating both privileged gamers and publishers to the overlooked issues in the history of fantasy and fantasy RPGs in particular? The community.
Who has for years built and supported more inclusive games and set the examples that WotC has been following behind on? The community.
No community is perfect, but your hyperbolic claims that the community wantshatred and racism is nonsense, as is the provably ridiculous claim that WotC has no legal defense whatsoever at all anymore. Furthermore, your claiming that those of us who spoke out in against the OGL changes because we had friends literally losing their livelihoods is somehow equivalent to actively wanting more hatred and bigotry in the hobby is offensive and insulting. It is also dismissive of the years of work by people in this community to educate others and improve the hobby.
It is entirely possible to both support independent creators AND actively work against hatred and bigotry. In fact, many independent creators, most of whom are marginalized in a variety of ways, do exactly that.
Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
There are other legal organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union or Legal Defense Fund that specialize in such cases that Wizards of the Coast are incapable of.
What happened today was not a defeat.
The ACLU fights against censorship, not for it.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron Satie
How am I wrong? 5e is more vulnerable than it's ever been in its lifetime to hateful people and bad actors. Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
We're not welcome in D&D anymore.
Much of this was precipitated by the nuTSR Star Frontiers racist mess. Do you know who posted excerpts and raised the awareness of it so that the public and WotC knew how racist it was? The community.
In the lawsuit by WotC against nuTSR, who literally compiled the majority of the evidence against nuTSR that WotC lawyers built nearly all of their evidence Exhibits from? The community. (There are threads showing the lawsuit. Go read them. Much of the evidence is literally community compiled.)
Who has highlighted WotC's own repeated issues with discrimination and offensive content? The community.
Who has been educating both privileged gamers and publishers to the overlooked issues in the history of fantasy and fantasy RPGs in particular? The community.
Who has for years built and supported more inclusive games and set the examples that WotC has been following behind on? The community.
No community is perfect, but your hyperbolic claims that the community wantshatred and racism is nonsense, as is the provably ridiculous claim that WotC has no legal defense whatsoever at all anymore. Furthermore, your claiming that those of us who spoke out in against the OGL changes because we had friends literally losing their livelihoods is somehow equivalent to actively wanting more hatred and bigotry in the hobby is offensive and insulting. It is also dismissive of the years of work by people in this community to educate others and improve the hobby.
It is entirely possible to both support independent creators AND actively work against hatred and bigotry. In fact, many independent creators, most of whom are marginalized in a variety of ways, do exactly that.
My dude, there is no "community"
"The community" is a myth. It's a marketing tool, a sales pitch. The people who play D&D, or TTRPGs in general, have absolutely nothing in common except for that one fact. Most of them have no clue there was even a "controversy" over the OGL. Most of the ones who heard about it don't care, because they figured it was just companies squabbling between themselves over which way to cut up the pie, even if one of those sides managed to sucker in some folks to treat that squabble like a crusade
The last couple weeks of nonsense should have made that crystal clear. There may be small groups of people who claim to speak for "the community", but they're just wannabe politicians who speak for no one but themselves
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
How am I wrong? 5e is more vulnerable than it's ever been in its lifetime to hateful people and bad actors. Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
We're not welcome in D&D anymore.
Much of this was precipitated by the nuTSR Star Frontiers racist mess. Do you know who posted excerpts and raised the awareness of it so that the public and WotC knew how racist it was? The community.
In the lawsuit by WotC against nuTSR, who literally compiled the majority of the evidence against nuTSR that WotC lawyers built nearly all of their evidence Exhibits from? The community. (There are threads showing the lawsuit. Go read them. Much of the evidence is literally community compiled.)
Who has highlighted WotC's own repeated issues with discrimination and offensive content? The community.
Who has been educating both privileged gamers and publishers to the overlooked issues in the history of fantasy and fantasy RPGs in particular? The community.
Who has for years built and supported more inclusive games and set the examples that WotC has been following behind on? The community.
No community is perfect, but your hyperbolic claims that the community wantshatred and racism is nonsense, as is the provably ridiculous claim that WotC has no legal defense whatsoever at all anymore. Furthermore, your claiming that those of us who spoke out in against the OGL changes because we had friends literally losing their livelihoods is somehow equivalent to actively wanting more hatred and bigotry in the hobby is offensive and insulting. It is also dismissive of the years of work by people in this community to educate others and improve the hobby.
It is entirely possible to both support independent creators AND actively work against hatred and bigotry. In fact, many independent creators, most of whom are marginalized in a variety of ways, do exactly that.
My dude, there is no "community"
"The community" is a myth. It's a marketing tool, a sales pitch. The people who play D&D, or TTRPGs in general, have absolutely nothing in common except for that one fact. Most of them have no clue there was even a "controversy" over the OGL. Most of the ones who heard about it don't care, because they figured it was just companies squabbling between themselves over which way to cut up the pie, even if one of those sides managed to sucker in some folks to treat that squabble like a crusade
The last couple weeks of nonsense should have made that crystal clear. There may be small groups of people who claim to speak for "the community", but they're just wannabe politicians who speak for no one but themselves
I don't want ableists, homophobes, racists, or transphobes to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community just as much as I don't want Hasbro to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community, and Hasbro just freed up a lot of time for me.
just dont play with them lmao
I don't, silly goose, but thank you for the suggestion.
You're such a big helper.
happy to help
genuinely dont get why people are upset at all about this
just dont talk to them lol
That’s not how harmful comments and hateful people work. seeing it, knowing it is there is harmful to people that it effects. You must keep in mind, we aren’t talking about teasing or goofing on people. And we are not talking about people who have necessarily lived a safe experience. We are talking about people who are attacked verbally and sometimes physically for just being themselves. When we allow people to say those things we allow victimization. When we tell people to just ignore it, we trivialize their experience.
Is the solution to such victimization really to disallow people to say things? Does gagging "hateful people" actually make anyone safe?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron Satie
How am I wrong? 5e is more vulnerable than it's ever been in its lifetime to hateful people and bad actors. Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
We're not welcome in D&D anymore.
Of course you are welcome. I may disagree with your takes throughout this … well all the drama. But that doesn’t change that d&d is for everyone and everyone is welcome.
the community does not want hatred or discrimination or anything like that. We don’t. There might be hateful individuals but pretty much every starter d&d video talks about session zero and boundaries. Making sure people are safe. The community as a whole cares that it is open and safe to people. And that if anything potentially triggering is signposted early so those that won’t enjoy certain stories can make safe calls. And I am not speaking about offensive or discriminatory material. I mean things like graphic descriptions, horror, and the like.
we may not have been on the same side in this fight. And that’s fine. But you and your friends are welcome in this game. And you saying that discrimination and hate isn’t welcome is fine. No one denies that. The only disagreement we have is with how that material should be policed. That’s all. No one is saying that all that is ok. We just believe those products are so flawed they will fail. And that there was no need to hurt other creators that do amazing good work without evidence that the problem needing being addressed in this way.
We have not had a massive problem with awful 3pp material and any that have existed have failed to be relevant. And they absolutely will not be relevant.
I don't want ableists, homophobes, racists, or transphobes to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community just as much as I don't want Hasbro to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community, and Hasbro just freed up a lot of time for me.
just dont play with them lmao
I don't, silly goose, but thank you for the suggestion.
You're such a big helper.
happy to help
genuinely dont get why people are upset at all about this
just dont talk to them lol
That’s not how harmful comments and hateful people work. seeing it, knowing it is there is harmful to people that it effects. You must keep in mind, we aren’t talking about teasing or goofing on people. And we are not talking about people who have necessarily lived a safe experience. We are talking about people who are attacked verbally and sometimes physically for just being themselves. When we allow people to say those things we allow victimization. When we tell people to just ignore it, we trivialize their experience.
Is the solution to such victimization really to disallow people to say things? Does gagging "hateful people" actually make anyone safe?
If you think giving hate a platform doesn’t endanger lives …then you live a privileged existence
How am I wrong? 5e is more vulnerable than it's ever been in its lifetime to hateful people and bad actors. Wizards is legally incapable of mounting any sort of legal effort against peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism now. The only defense D&D has against hateful content now is "The Community", and frankly nothing about this debacle has shaken my conviction that this community would welcome those things into the hobby. This community wants hatred, discrimination, and exclusionism in their game, and for anyone experiencing those things to leave the hobby and not return. You all have made it abundantly clear - people like me, people like my friends?
We're not welcome in D&D anymore.
Much of this was precipitated by the nuTSR Star Frontiers racist mess. Do you know who posted excerpts and raised the awareness of it so that the public and WotC knew how racist it was? The community.
In the lawsuit by WotC against nuTSR, who literally compiled the majority of the evidence against nuTSR that WotC lawyers built nearly all of their evidence Exhibits from? The community. (There are threads showing the lawsuit. Go read them. Much of the evidence is literally community compiled.)
Who has highlighted WotC's own repeated issues with discrimination and offensive content? The community.
Who has been educating both privileged gamers and publishers to the overlooked issues in the history of fantasy and fantasy RPGs in particular? The community.
Who has for years built and supported more inclusive games and set the examples that WotC has been following behind on? The community.
No community is perfect, but your hyperbolic claims that the community wantshatred and racism is nonsense, as is the provably ridiculous claim that WotC has no legal defense whatsoever at all anymore. Furthermore, your claiming that those of us who spoke out in against the OGL changes because we had friends literally losing their livelihoods is somehow equivalent to actively wanting more hatred and bigotry in the hobby is offensive and insulting. It is also dismissive of the years of work by people in this community to educate others and improve the hobby.
It is entirely possible to both support independent creators AND actively work against hatred and bigotry. In fact, many independent creators, most of whom are marginalized in a variety of ways, do exactly that.
My dude, there is no "community"
"The community" is a myth. It's a marketing tool, a sales pitch. The people who play D&D, or TTRPGs in general, have absolutely nothing in common except for that one fact. Most of them have no clue there was even a "controversy" over the OGL. Most of the ones who heard about it don't care, because they figured it was just companies squabbling between themselves over which way to cut up the pie, even if one of those sides managed to sucker in some folks to treat that squabble like a crusade
The last couple weeks of nonsense should have made that crystal clear. There may be small groups of people who claim to speak for "the community", but they're just wannabe politicians who speak for no one but themselves
Genuinely curious here. How so? People have stood up for people directly affected even though for their own tables it may have no impact on them. While sure some people had direct vested interests here. This doesn’t make them bad people. It doesn’t mean their aren’t right.
I think you don’t quite give us enough credit to be able to look at a situation fairly and assess what the right outcome is
the existing license has been responsible for a thriving diverse industry. at creation it was intended to be unrevocable and businesses have relied on that to operate. if they want to publish a better license alongside the old one is fine and perhaps most will migrate to it. but to try to deauthorize the existing license has many possibilities to screw over the rest of the existing industry and needs very good reason, communication and care. as well as ample time for the industry to adjust. none of that was present here. i will not be surprised if the next SRD is under a more restrictive license. i'm not in favor of that but changing content in the future does not have the same problems that changing the existing stuff does and ultimately is wizard's prerogative. changing what was intended to be a permanent license for previous srds at this point is no less than acting in bad faith
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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I understand why you might not believe me, Yurei1453, but:
You and your friends are welcome in my game any time. I also publicly assert that, if you want me to, I will come to your side against bad actors as loudly and clearly as I did on the OGL issue.
You belong here, as long as you want to be here. Hate does not.
Diverse opinions and people are a boon to any community.
There are other legal organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union or Legal Defense Fund that specialize in such cases that Wizards of the Coast are incapable of.
What happened today was not a defeat.
Not necessarily true, under the CC-BY-4.0 license and notice:
The CC license does a far better job of public protection than anything Wotc could manage, given the recent events. Everyone is welcomed in D&D regardless of lifestyle, and everyone will be held to a global standard of human rights, decency, and inclusion.
Today, January 27th 2023 is not a day of victory, but a point in time where we can collectively sit down together and work on making D&D better for the next 50 years.
I don't want ableists, homophobes, racists, or transphobes to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community just as much as I don't want Hasbro to have power over the tabletop roleplaying game community, and Hasbro just freed up a lot of time for me.
just dont play with them lmao
I don't, silly goose, but thank you for the suggestion.
You're such a big helper.
happy to help
genuinely dont get why people are upset at all about this
just dont talk to them lol
That’s not how harmful comments and hateful people work.
seeing it, knowing it is there is harmful to people that it effects. You must keep in mind, we aren’t talking about teasing or goofing on people. And we are not talking about people who have necessarily lived a safe experience. We are talking about people who are attacked verbally and sometimes physically for just being themselves.
When we allow people to say those things we allow victimization. When we tell people to just ignore it, we trivialize their experience.
I'm 100% in support of shutting them up so I don't have to talk to them, though.
That's quite a take. It assumes that it was Wizards' responsibility to mount such legal efforts against "peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusion" to begin with, which it never was. And now you say you and your helpless friends are the victims of this entire community? That is downright comical. Bravo. Haven't laughed that hard in a while.
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron SatieYou haven't thought this through at all lol
Do you think WotC actually has the legal bandwidth to prosecute against 'peddlers of hate, discrimination, and exclusionism'? Ignore whether or not it's morally virtuous or not; they don't have the capacity.
Just at a glance it would be trivially easy for someone to produce a piece of 'hateful' content and publish it. If it gets revoked, republish it with a trivial distinction. Or run it through an AI algorithm and tell it to replace all of the X stereotypes with Y stereotypes. You can do this as many times as you like without significant effort and without penalty. WotC would be playing an unwinnable game of whack-a-mole.
And because people like you expect this to actually do anything against genuinely hateful actors, you've put WotC in the worst position possible; they have the responsibility to bring the hammer down on hateful content, but no real power to do so.
The alternative - and the only sensible option - is for WotC to forgo the responsibility and place it on you. Are you able to grow up, accept that some people aren't going to like you no matter what you do, and have fun with a game? Every sensible adult in the world has already realized that not everybody likes them.
Much of this was precipitated by the nuTSR Star Frontiers racist mess. Do you know who posted excerpts and raised the awareness of it so that the public and WotC knew how racist it was? The community.
In the lawsuit by WotC against nuTSR, who literally compiled the majority of the evidence against nuTSR that WotC lawyers built nearly all of their evidence Exhibits from? The community. (There are threads showing the lawsuit. Go read them. Much of the evidence is literally community compiled.)
Who has highlighted WotC's own repeated issues with discrimination and offensive content? The community.
Who has been educating both privileged gamers and publishers to the overlooked issues in the history of fantasy and fantasy RPGs in particular? The community.
Who has for years built and supported more inclusive games and set the examples that WotC has been following behind on? The community.
No community is perfect, but your hyperbolic claims that the community wants hatred and racism is nonsense, as is the provably ridiculous claim that WotC has no legal defense whatsoever at all anymore. Furthermore, your claiming that those of us who spoke out in against the OGL changes because we had friends literally losing their livelihoods is somehow equivalent to actively wanting more hatred and bigotry in the hobby is offensive and insulting. It is also dismissive of the years of work by people in this community to educate others and improve the hobby.
It is entirely possible to both support independent creators AND actively work against hatred and bigotry. In fact, many independent creators, most of whom are marginalized in a variety of ways, do exactly that.
The ACLU fights against censorship, not for it.
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron SatieMy dude, there is no "community"
"The community" is a myth. It's a marketing tool, a sales pitch. The people who play D&D, or TTRPGs in general, have absolutely nothing in common except for that one fact. Most of them have no clue there was even a "controversy" over the OGL. Most of the ones who heard about it don't care, because they figured it was just companies squabbling between themselves over which way to cut up the pie, even if one of those sides managed to sucker in some folks to treat that squabble like a crusade
The last couple weeks of nonsense should have made that crystal clear. There may be small groups of people who claim to speak for "the community", but they're just wannabe politicians who speak for no one but themselves
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
My dude, tell Yurei1453 that then.
Is the solution to such victimization really to disallow people to say things? Does gagging "hateful people" actually make anyone safe?
“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." - Starfleet Admiral Aaron SatieOf course you are welcome. I may disagree with your takes throughout this … well all the drama. But that doesn’t change that d&d is for everyone and everyone is welcome.
the community does not want hatred or discrimination or anything like that. We don’t. There might be hateful individuals but pretty much every starter d&d video talks about session zero and boundaries. Making sure people are safe. The community as a whole cares that it is open and safe to people. And that if anything potentially triggering is signposted early so those that won’t enjoy certain stories can make safe calls. And I am not speaking about offensive or discriminatory material. I mean things like graphic descriptions, horror, and the like.
we may not have been on the same side in this fight. And that’s fine. But you and your friends are welcome in this game. And you saying that discrimination and hate isn’t welcome is fine. No one denies that. The only disagreement we have is with how that material should be policed. That’s all. No one is saying that all that is ok. We just believe those products are so flawed they will fail. And that there was no need to hurt other creators that do amazing good work without evidence that the problem needing being addressed in this way.
We have not had a massive problem with awful 3pp material and any that have existed have failed to be relevant. And they absolutely will not be relevant.
If you think giving hate a platform doesn’t endanger lives …then you live a privileged existence
Genuinely curious here. How so? People have stood up for people directly affected even though for their own tables it may have no impact on them. While sure some people had direct vested interests here. This doesn’t make them bad people. It doesn’t mean their aren’t right.
I think you don’t quite give us enough credit to be able to look at a situation fairly and assess what the right outcome is
the existing license has been responsible for a thriving diverse industry. at creation it was intended to be unrevocable and businesses have relied on that to operate. if they want to publish a better license alongside the old one is fine and perhaps most will migrate to it. but to try to deauthorize the existing license has many possibilities to screw over the rest of the existing industry and needs very good reason, communication and care. as well as ample time for the industry to adjust. none of that was present here. i will not be surprised if the next SRD is under a more restrictive license. i'm not in favor of that but changing content in the future does not have the same problems that changing the existing stuff does and ultimately is wizard's prerogative. changing what was intended to be a permanent license for previous srds at this point is no less than acting in bad faith