Wait, who else are we supposed to refer to with questions about a subject if not the experts? We are now debating about a lot of definitions and scenarios, but it's not like most of us have spent time and effort studying the subject, though I do have some on the job experience with DEI. Wouldn't it make sense for this matter to be overseen by people who have? It would be like fast forwarding through all of this useless arguing on the internet because they've already been through it and have some backing from whatever body of knowledge that humanity has already collected on it.
Who else would you suggest putting on this panel?
I would prefer to see a panel that includes more voices from the community, like a rotating list of representatives from the 3PPs and maybe the wider community, not just from experts in the field. There needs to be space for debate before a decision is made when the only other alternative would seem to be taking WotC to court after the fact, which almost no one can afford.
I could see this, but I feel like there should be a separate place for educated opinions. So in previous threads I was saying that I think such a body should be transparent to the public with all their processes and criteria as well as have a review and appeals process. I think that would be the place to hear from the community, personally, in the feedback process.
My fear is that such a panel will decree "X" to be racist even though that thing might not be racist, or the application of it in story can be justified.
1) Why do you fear this, specifically? 2) What is your working definition of racism?
1. Because there are people in this community who steadfastly hold the position that some things are racist, when many others disagree.
What is there to fear from such a disagreement, though? Unless you just fear disagreement itself?
2. Very similar, if not the same, as yours and the definitions of others here who oppose racism.
If you would indulge me in actually writing out what you mean instead of just referencing me?
I mean sure there's some disagreement on some things, but generally when we want to learn something we go to the people and institutions that study such things. For me I would point to something like the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a starting point. Then there are other groups who have made it their focus to study things like racism, many of them having a vested interest in understanding it because they represent groups who suffer from it, so it makes sense that they'd want to understand it well, like the NAACP for example. And then you have legal groups, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, who study racism and bigotry because they deal with such cases in the legal system. Even the Wikipedia article on Racism is pretty well cited and links to other resources, which is a decent place to start researching the topic.
While there may still be some grey areas around the edges, there is a pretty general consensus among people who study racism that it is systemic discrimination against people for perceived racial differences. And even for me I struggled for awhile coming to an understanding of that "systemic" part.
I am starting from a position that applying these concepts to imaginary things in a game is already problematic. Some people want to apply the idea of bioessentialism to a game of make-believe.
Me included. Again, from above, the issue with having bioessentialist or racist ideas in gaming is not that we confuse fantasy for reality, it is that the themes echo directly things that we experience in real life and being exposed to those echoes is harmful to us. We do not think we are orcs. We do not think orcs are black people. We do, however, think that the kinds of language and behavior used for orcs sounds enough like the language and behavior used for real life minority groups that the text itself is hurtful. Does that make sense?
I believe that I am capable of holding two opposing views in my mind, and not being the worse for it. I am capable of telling a make-believe story where a make-believe evil god can create a make-believe evil sentient species, while also holding to be true the heartfelt belief that in real life all human beings are, and should be, equal. I do not believe that any member of the human race should be categorized as "all X".
But I am having difficulty with the idea that some people don't separate the in-game world from the real world. I can appreciate that this may be because of my privilege, but we're talking about a game where ALL elves and Dwarves have dark-vision, for example. Those are specific (imaginary) genetic traits that ALL members of that species have, yet we get hung up on another thing as being "genetic" to an entire species.
Can I give a personal example?
When Star Wars IX: Duel of the Fates came out I found myself very uncomfortable with the portrayal of the Nemoidians. It took a little while for me to even understand why it was that they made me uncomfortable because it was so ... insidiously hidden. The Nemoidians are portrayed in similar enough ways to the very old and racist depictions of Asians that it was hurtful to those of us who have been subject to that kind of thing, but they were just different enough from real life that people who were privileged enough to not ever have experienced that particular kind of racism completely missed it. The real poison from this kind of subtle racism is that is makes you question if you even want to bring it up because you would get so easily shouted down.
Do I think the Nemoidians are Asian? No. Do I think I am a Nemoidian? No. But did I still twist in my seat with a lump in my gut because I felt like I was being made fun of? Oh yes. It's not a problem of separating fantasy from reality. It's a problem that sometimes things hit to close to home even if they aren't meant to. Then to make it worse, these themes are ideas are repeated or used in more personal situations, like in a TTRPG with friends. Unwitting friends who use stereotypes and tropes in ways not meant to be harmful, because they don't know, and then all of a sudden your friend group no longer feels safe. Because if they can think this way about them, do they maybe secretly think that way about me? I have been blindsided by well meaning racism from friends before and it's almost worse than badly intended racism because it chips away at the security you feel around your friends.
This was my experience with a space fantasy franchise, and it is similar to things I have heard from people about orcs or drow in D&D. They made people uncomfortable and unsafe. Not because they are directly connecting orcs or drow with real life peoples, but because the language used to describe people directly mirrors, echoes, triggers, etc. language that we are subject to in real life and is thus hurtful.
Is that understandable?
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 will ask again. Do you expect this tool to be applied in the next few months to run parallel with the SRD 5.1 and 1.0a, or do you expect this tool to be applied with 6e and a new OGL.
I don't think you've ever asked me this, actually, but like I said in my first post in this thread I think OGL 1.0 is stuck the way it is forever. If any sort of anti-bigotry clause were to go in an OGL, it would be in the future.
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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!
When the "disallowed use" in question is the legal publishing of protected speech, that constitutes the very meaning of censorship. Point denied.
Speech cannot be protected from corporations. Speech can only be protected from the government. Secondarily, you are getting into Paradox of Tolerance territory, wherein absolute tolerance of any ideal, even hateful ideals, acts to diminish tolerance rather than expand it. If a platform for speech - such as, in a particularly torturous definition of 'platform for speech' in this case, the ability to publish content for D&D 5e - has rules associated with the use of that platform, nobody gets to say "having rules is unfair!" No one is obligated to give hateful ideals a platform to broadcast to the world from.
Finally, the point left entirely on the floor was that censorship does not protect people from bigotry, it just protects them from having an option to read an expression of it at the cost of fostering more hatred.
Again, Paradox of Tolerance. People who express hateful, hurtful views do not magically become cured of those views by expressing them, and they do convert other people into hateful people and reduce the tolerance of the overall gestalt. Giving them a platform to broadcast their hatred to the masses results in Fox News the spread and amplification of hatred as the platform acts to normalize those hateful views. Will some people become obsessed with their hate if not allowed to try and spread that hate to others, feeling like they're oppressed and silenced and becoming ever more furious over it? Yes. Fact: this already happens. ANY amount of protection against/deplatforming of hateful speech causes 'festering resentment'; the sort of mindset given to blind, virulent hatred is also the sort of mindset generally not strongly inclined to rational thinking or introspection. One cannot help making hateful people more hateful. One can help the targets of that hate, by reducing the amount of hate that reaches them.
Nobody would complain if somebody loudly bellowing a racist rant in the middle of a Wal-Mart was asked to leave by the store's management. Why do people feel like Wizards is required to allow similar rants within its own sphere of operations, to the immediate and difficult to repair detriment of D&D as a whole?
Because other people's intellectual property is not their sphere of operations. Because I don't trust other people to define what is hateful when they argue orcs being evil is racist because orcs are NOT real and I and others don't have to accept the analogy other people make about orcs to try to fit it into some real-world conflict. What this really is about is having a small group of people deciding what is appropriate to others and having the power to make it stick. That is what is objectionable.
Wait, who else are we supposed to refer to with questions about a subject if not the experts? We are now debating about a lot of definitions and scenarios, but it's not like most of us have spent time and effort studying the subject, though I do have some on the job experience with DEI. Wouldn't it make sense for this matter to be overseen by people who have? It would be like fast forwarding through all of this useless arguing on the internet because they've already been through it and have some backing from whatever body of knowledge that humanity has already collected on it.
Who else would you suggest putting on this panel?
I would prefer to see a panel that includes more voices from the community, like a rotating list of representatives from the 3PPs and maybe the wider community, not just from experts in the field. There needs to be space for debate before a decision is made when the only other alternative would seem to be taking WotC to court after the fact, which almost no one can afford.
By the time you're talking about a panel, you're well outside of what WotC can or would do internally. The standard way of achieving this, which has been done by plenty of businesses in the past, is:
Establish a non-profit corporation that does content evaluation.
Convince all major industry operators to sign on. You generally also want to convince the distribution network.
Games that have been evaluated by the corporation are entitled to use one of the corporation's trademarks (probably indicating the standard they pass).
There is no technical barrier to doing that today; the barriers actually have to do with convincing a bunch of diverse interests to actually agree, and convincing buyers to care.
By the time you're talking about a panel, you're well outside of what WotC can or would do internally. The standard way of achieving this, which has been done by plenty of businesses in the past, is:
Establish a non-profit corporation that does content evaluation.
Convince all major industry operators to sign on. You generally also want to convince the distribution network.
Games that have been evaluated by the corporation are entitled to use one of the corporation's trademarks (probably indicating the standard they pass).
There is no technical barrier to doing that today; the barriers actually have to do with convincing a bunch of diverse interests to actually agree, and convincing buyers to care.
Thank you for some more practical considerations. I don't have the knowledge to talk about actionable stuff like this.
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 believe that I am capable of holding two opposing views in my mind, and not being the worse for it. I am capable of telling a make-believe story where a make-believe evil god can create a make-believe evil sentient species, while also holding to be true the heartfelt belief that in real life all human beings are, and should be, equal. I do not believe that any member of the human race should be categorized as "all X".
But I am having difficulty with the idea that some people don't separate the in-game world from the real world. I can appreciate that this may be because of my privilege, but we're talking about a game where ALL elves and Dwarves have dark-vision, for example. Those are specific (imaginary) genetic traits that ALL members of that species have, yet we get hung up on another thing as being "genetic" to an entire species.
Can I give a personal example?
When Star Wars IX: Duel of the Fates came out I found myself very uncomfortable with the portrayal of the Nemoidians. It took a little while for me to even understand why it was that they made me uncomfortable because it was so ... insidiously hidden. The Nemoidians are portrayed in similar enough ways to the very old and racist depictions of Asians that it was hurtful to those of us who have been subject to that kind of thing, but they were just different enough from real life that people who were privileged enough to not ever have experienced that particular kind of racism completely missed it. The real poison from this kind of subtle racism is that is makes you question if you even want to bring it up because you would get so easily shouted down.
Do I think the Nemoidians are Asian? No. Do I think I am a Nemoidian? No. But did I still twist in my seat with a lump in my gut because I felt like I was being made fun of? Oh yes. It's not a problem of separating fantasy from reality. It's a problem that sometimes things hit to close to home even if they aren't meant to. Then to make it worse, these themes are ideas are repeated or used in more personal situations, like in a TTRPG with friends. Unwitting friends who use stereotypes and tropes in ways not meant to be harmful, because they don't know, and then all of a sudden your friend group no longer feels safe. Because if they can think this way about them, do they maybe secretly think that way about me? I have been blindsided by well meaning racism from friends before and it's almost worse than badly intended racism because it chips away at the security you feel around your friends.
This was my experience with a space fantasy franchise, and it is similar to things I have heard from people about orcs or drow in D&D. They made people uncomfortable and unsafe. Not because they are directly connecting orcs or drow with real life peoples, but because the language used to describe people directly mirrors, echoes, triggers, etc. language that we are subject to in real life and is thus hurtful.
Is that understandable?
Do you think that Disney, after buying the Star Wars franchise is under a moral obligation to remove the Nemodians from all lore, tear up any contracts that subjorn Nemodians IP, and claw back millions of dollars in revenue on a flimsy moral justification based on someone, somewhere feeling similar to the way you do?
Hold up.
I was specifically answering a question about someone who couldn't understand why fictional portrayals of fictional species could be hurtful in this way. Also I used a very personal example. So maybe slow your roll just a little. A little less "flimsy" thrown my way about my actual feelings would be appreciated.
None of the rest of what you said absolutely has to be made in direct counterpoint to this exact example, so I'm not going to respond to you in this case.
The reality of the situation is that the vast majority of users
...had no clue there was even a controversy
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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)
the majority of users don’t actually care, as demonstrated by the reported turnout relative to the 1D&D surveys. Unfortunately, this left the vocal minority to demand absolute capitulation, and between that drama and Paizo making a killing by playing the white knight, WotC cut their losses. Hurray for that mob justice you’re so fond of, I guess. Goodness knows that has never been turned on an innocent party or blown up in everyone’s face.
You mean this vocal minority, of 89%?
These are the words of Kyle Brink, who might have insight.
"When you give us playtest feedback, we take it seriously.
Already more than 15,000 of you have filled out the survey. Here's what you said:
88% do not want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2.
90% would have to change some aspect of their business to accommodate OGL 1.2.
89% are dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a.
86% are dissatisfied with the draft VTT policy.
62% are satisfied with including Systems Reference Document (SRD) content in Creative Commons, and the majority of those who were dissatisfied asked for more SRD content in Creative Commons."
When they had something like 40K responses to 1D&D surveys, yes 15K represents a minority
the majority of users don’t actually care, as demonstrated by the reported turnout relative to the 1D&D surveys. Unfortunately, this left the vocal minority to demand absolute capitulation, and between that drama and Paizo making a killing by playing the white knight, WotC cut their losses. Hurray for that mob justice you’re so fond of, I guess. Goodness knows that has never been turned on an innocent party or blown up in everyone’s face.
You mean this vocal minority, of 89%?
These are the words of Kyle Brink, who might have insight.
"When you give us playtest feedback, we take it seriously.
Already more than 15,000 of you have filled out the survey. Here's what you said:
88% do not want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2.
90% would have to change some aspect of their business to accommodate OGL 1.2.
89% are dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a.
86% are dissatisfied with the draft VTT policy.
62% are satisfied with including Systems Reference Document (SRD) content in Creative Commons, and the majority of those who were dissatisfied asked for more SRD content in Creative Commons."
When they had something like 40K responses to 1D&D surveys, yes 15K represents a minority
There were an estimated 50 million people playing 5e worldwide in 2021, which is the most recent estimate I could find with a quick Google
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)
When they had something like 40K responses to 1D&D surveys, yes 15K represents a minority
LMFAO so disingenuous. What about the relative timeframes over which responses were gathered? What about the relative accessibility of the surveys? Got a source on the 40k too?
the majority of users don’t actually care, as demonstrated by the reported turnout relative to the 1D&D surveys. Unfortunately, this left the vocal minority to demand absolute capitulation, and between that drama and Paizo making a killing by playing the white knight, WotC cut their losses. Hurray for that mob justice you’re so fond of, I guess. Goodness knows that has never been turned on an innocent party or blown up in everyone’s face.
You mean this vocal minority, of 89%?
These are the words of Kyle Brink, who might have insight.
"When you give us playtest feedback, we take it seriously.
Already more than 15,000 of you have filled out the survey. Here's what you said:
88% do not want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2.
90% would have to change some aspect of their business to accommodate OGL 1.2.
89% are dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a.
86% are dissatisfied with the draft VTT policy.
62% are satisfied with including Systems Reference Document (SRD) content in Creative Commons, and the majority of those who were dissatisfied asked for more SRD content in Creative Commons."
When they had something like 40K responses to 1D&D surveys, yes 15K represents a minority
Apparently wotc does not agree with you. And I prefer the term "market forces". You are also omitting the fact that the UA surveys are up for 2 weeks plus, while this license survey was up for less than 8 days. This is the statement included in the survey description:
After you've read the new SRD 5.1 Introduction, OGL 1.2, and the VTT Policy:
Provide your feedback on the review documents in our survey.
The survey will remain open until February 3.
We'll talk again on or before February 17. We'll share what we heard from you and updates to the OGL document as a result.
The process will extend as long as it needs to. We'll keep iterating and getting your feedback until we get it right.
wotc did wait until Feb 17th. They did not even wait until the Feb 3rd survey date. In less than 8 days they had more than enough data to realize what the VAST majority wanted, THEN go to their lawyers to craft the legalese, THEN craft the PR statement that came out.
I specifically acknowledged market forces in another post. Like I said, Paizo leapt at the chance to play white knight to the community. Like I’ve said, people made opposing WotC on all fronts into a Cause, regardless of how much bearing it had on the actual issue. None of that changes the fact that by the apparent metrics the turnout for the OGL survey was a small portion of the community.
the majority of users don’t actually care, as demonstrated by the reported turnout relative to the 1D&D surveys. Unfortunately, this left the vocal minority to demand absolute capitulation, and between that drama and Paizo making a killing by playing the white knight, WotC cut their losses. Hurray for that mob justice you’re so fond of, I guess. Goodness knows that has never been turned on an innocent party or blown up in everyone’s face.
You mean this vocal minority, of 89%?
These are the words of Kyle Brink, who might have insight.
"When you give us playtest feedback, we take it seriously.
Already more than 15,000 of you have filled out the survey. Here's what you said:
88% do not want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2.
90% would have to change some aspect of their business to accommodate OGL 1.2.
89% are dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a.
86% are dissatisfied with the draft VTT policy.
62% are satisfied with including Systems Reference Document (SRD) content in Creative Commons, and the majority of those who were dissatisfied asked for more SRD content in Creative Commons."
When they had something like 40K responses to 1D&D surveys, yes 15K represents a minority
Apparently wotc does not agree with you. And I prefer the term "market forces". You are also omitting the fact that the UA surveys are up for 2 weeks plus, while this license survey was up for less than 8 days. This is the statement included in the survey description:
After you've read the new SRD 5.1 Introduction, OGL 1.2, and the VTT Policy:
Provide your feedback on the review documents in our survey.
The survey will remain open until February 3.
We'll talk again on or before February 17. We'll share what we heard from you and updates to the OGL document as a result.
The process will extend as long as it needs to. We'll keep iterating and getting your feedback until we get it right.
wotc did wait until Feb 17th. They did not even wait until the Feb 3rd survey date. In less than 8 days they had more than enough data to realize what the VAST majority wanted, THEN go to their lawyers to craft the legalese, THEN craft the PR statement that came out.
I specifically acknowledged market forces in another post. Like I said, Paizo leapt at the chance to play white knight to the community. Like I’ve said, people made opposing WotC on all fronts into a Cause, regardless of how much bearing it had on the actual issue. None of that changes the fact that by the apparent metrics the turnout for the OGL survey was a small portion of the community.
Refusing to engage with their bad faith gaslighting abusive "survey" is not evidence that they didn't care. It's evidence that they didn't engage. I didn't vote in this "survey" because I found the entire thing to be disingenuous. I still don't actually believe that the survey which was wildly in favor of keeping the OGL as-is was the actual reason they backed down.
Some combination of: Multiple bad legal arguments Strong risk of losing IP Pressure from shareholders/stockholders Hasbro's need for reliable cash and Wizards/DDB subs drying up Worry about other projects like the movie about to drop and DDB as a huge sunk cost Worry about competitors selling massive volumes of competing IP/ Various open source projects
But yeah, just because someone didn't specifically come here to participate in WotC Gaslighting doesn't mean that they didn't care or were neutral towards it.
Holy shit this devolved quickly. I was gone for what, half a day?
Guys, keep it civil. WotC has rolled back the new OGL. That is exactly what you asked for. Now there isn't anything to stop bigots from publishing their shit. Yes, there wasn't anything to stop it before, but just because there's been a hole in your roof for 20 years, doesn't mean you should do nothing about it. Sheesh.
When Star Wars IX: Duel of the Fates came out I found myself very uncomfortable with the portrayal of the Nemoidians. It took a little while for me to even understand why it was that they made me uncomfortable because it was so ... insidiously hidden. The Nemoidians are portrayed in similar enough ways to the very old and racist depictions of Asians that it was hurtful to those of us who have been subject to that kind of thing, but they were just different enough from real life that people who were privileged enough to not ever have experienced that particular kind of racism completely missed it. The real poison from this kind of subtle racism is that is makes you question if you even want to bring it up because you would get so easily shouted down.
Do I think the Nemoidians are Asian? No. Do I think I am a Nemoidian? No. But did I still twist in my seat with a lump in my gut because I felt like I was being made fun of? Oh yes. It's not a problem of separating fantasy from reality. It's a problem that sometimes things hit to close to home even if they aren't meant to. Then to make it worse, these themes are ideas are repeated or used in more personal situations, like in a TTRPG with friends. Unwitting friends who use stereotypes and tropes in ways not meant to be harmful, because they don't know, and then all of a sudden your friend group no longer feels safe. Because if they can think this way about them, do they maybe secretly think that way about me? I have been blindsided by well meaning racism from friends before and it's almost worse than badly intended racism because it chips away at the security you feel around your friends.
This was my experience with a space fantasy franchise, and it is similar to things I have heard from people about orcs or drow in D&D. They made people uncomfortable and unsafe. Not because they are directly connecting orcs or drow with real life peoples, but because the language used to describe people directly mirrors, echoes, triggers, etc. language that we are subject to in real life and is thus hurtful.
Is that understandable?
Thank you for your story, I can understand it and appreciate it, even if my own experience has been different from yours, however I would point out that you referred to how the Nemoidans were using asian stereotypes and this was the issue. And I would agree with you! I can say that, though I am not Asian, when I read your story I could hear the dialogue in my mind, and it made me cringe.
The Vistani in CoS are a racist portrayal of real world Romani. The old Oriental Adventures book is also problematic. In those cases those fictional versions of those people were inappropriate.
But the Orcs of 5e D&D are not fictional versions of real life people using real-life tropes. They are described as "Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." They are clearly not humans, and it is possible to be a good, non-racist person, who uses orcs in their game without them being analogues for anyone in the real world.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing) You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
the majority of users don’t actually care, as demonstrated by the reported turnout relative to the 1D&D surveys. Unfortunately, this left the vocal minority to demand absolute capitulation, and between that drama and Paizo making a killing by playing the white knight, WotC cut their losses. Hurray for that mob justice you’re so fond of, I guess. Goodness knows that has never been turned on an innocent party or blown up in everyone’s face.
You mean this vocal minority, of 89%?
These are the words of Kyle Brink, who might have insight.
"When you give us playtest feedback, we take it seriously.
Already more than 15,000 of you have filled out the survey. Here's what you said:
88% do not want to publish TTRPG content under OGL 1.2.
90% would have to change some aspect of their business to accommodate OGL 1.2.
89% are dissatisfied with deauthorizing OGL 1.0a.
86% are dissatisfied with the draft VTT policy.
62% are satisfied with including Systems Reference Document (SRD) content in Creative Commons, and the majority of those who were dissatisfied asked for more SRD content in Creative Commons."
When they had something like 40K responses to 1D&D surveys, yes 15K represents a minority
Apparently wotc does not agree with you. And I prefer the term "market forces". You are also omitting the fact that the UA surveys are up for 2 weeks plus, while this license survey was up for less than 8 days. This is the statement included in the survey description:
After you've read the new SRD 5.1 Introduction, OGL 1.2, and the VTT Policy:
Provide your feedback on the review documents in our survey.
The survey will remain open until February 3.
We'll talk again on or before February 17. We'll share what we heard from you and updates to the OGL document as a result.
The process will extend as long as it needs to. We'll keep iterating and getting your feedback until we get it right.
wotc did wait until Feb 17th. They did not even wait until the Feb 3rd survey date. In less than 8 days they had more than enough data to realize what the VAST majority wanted, THEN go to their lawyers to craft the legalese, THEN craft the PR statement that came out.
I specifically acknowledged market forces in another post. Like I said, Paizo leapt at the chance to play white knight to the community. Like I’ve said, people made opposing WotC on all fronts into a Cause, regardless of how much bearing it had on the actual issue. None of that changes the fact that by the apparent metrics the turnout for the OGL survey was a small portion of the community.
Refusing to engage with their bad faith gaslighting abusive "survey" is not evidence that they didn't care. It's evidence that they didn't engage. I didn't vote in this "survey" because I found the entire thing to be disingenuous. I still don't actually believe that the survey which was wildly in favor of keeping the OGL as-is was the actual reason they backed down.
Some combination of: Multiple bad legal arguments Strong risk of losing IP Pressure from shareholders/stockholders Hasbro's need for reliable cash and Wizards/DDB subs drying up Worry about other projects like the movie about to drop and DDB as a huge sunk cost Worry about competitors selling massive volumes of competing IP
But yeah, just because someone didn't specifically come here to participate in WotC Gaslighting doesn't mean that they didn't care or were neutral towards it.
It also doesn’t follow that they did care. Survey participation is a limited data point, but we can see that the basis of responses cited is markedly less than in other surveys, which as a corollary means it is much less likely to have contained a representative sample of the population.
Wait, who else are we supposed to refer to with questions about a subject if not the experts? We are now debating about a lot of definitions and scenarios, but it's not like most of us have spent time and effort studying the subject, though I do have some on the job experience with DEI. Wouldn't it make sense for this matter to be overseen by people who have? It would be like fast forwarding through all of this useless arguing on the internet because they've already been through it and have some backing from whatever body of knowledge that humanity has already collected on it.
Who else would you suggest putting on this panel?
I would prefer to see a panel that includes more voices from the community, like a rotating list of representatives from the 3PPs and maybe the wider community, not just from experts in the field. There needs to be space for debate before a decision is made when the only other alternative would seem to be taking WotC to court after the fact, which almost no one can afford.
I could see this, but I feel like there should be a separate place for educated opinions. So in previous threads I was saying that I think such a body should be transparent to the public with all their processes and criteria as well as have a review and appeals process. I think that would be the place to hear from the community, personally, in the feedback process.
My fear is that such a panel will decree "X" to be racist even though that thing might not be racist, or the application of it in story can be justified.
1) Why do you fear this, specifically? 2) What is your working definition of racism?
1. Because there are people in this community who steadfastly hold the position that some things are racist, when many others disagree.
What is there to fear from such a disagreement, though? Unless you just fear disagreement itself?
2. Very similar, if not the same, as yours and the definitions of others here who oppose racism.
If you would indulge me in actually writing out what you mean instead of just referencing me?
I mean sure there's some disagreement on some things, but generally when we want to learn something we go to the people and institutions that study such things. For me I would point to something like the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a starting point. Then there are other groups who have made it their focus to study things like racism, many of them having a vested interest in understanding it because they represent groups who suffer from it, so it makes sense that they'd want to understand it well, like the NAACP for example. And then you have legal groups, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, who study racism and bigotry because they deal with such cases in the legal system. Even the Wikipedia article on Racism is pretty well cited and links to other resources, which is a decent place to start researching the topic.
While there may still be some grey areas around the edges, there is a pretty general consensus among people who study racism that it is systemic discrimination against people for perceived racial differences. And even for me I struggled for awhile coming to an understanding of that "systemic" part.
I am starting from a position that applying these concepts to imaginary things in a game is already problematic. Some people want to apply the idea of bioessentialism to a game of make-believe.
Me included. Again, from above, the issue with having bioessentialist or racist ideas in gaming is not that we confuse fantasy for reality, it is that the themes echo directly things that we experience in real life and being exposed to those echoes is harmful to us. We do not think we are orcs. We do not think orcs are black people. We do, however, think that the kinds of language and behavior used for orcs sounds enough like the language and behavior used for real life minority groups that the text itself is hurtful. Does that make sense?
I believe that I am capable of holding two opposing views in my mind, and not being the worse for it. I am capable of telling a make-believe story where a make-believe evil god can create a make-believe evil sentient species, while also holding to be true the heartfelt belief that in real life all human beings are, and should be, equal. I do not believe that any member of the human race should be categorized as "all X".
But I am having difficulty with the idea that some people don't separate the in-game world from the real world. I can appreciate that this may be because of my privilege, but we're talking about a game where ALL elves and Dwarves have dark-vision, for example. Those are specific (imaginary) genetic traits that ALL members of that species have, yet we get hung up on another thing as being "genetic" to an entire species.
Can I give a personal example?
When Star Wars IX: Duel of the Fates came out I found myself very uncomfortable with the portrayal of the Nemoidians. It took a little while for me to even understand why it was that they made me uncomfortable because it was so ... insidiously hidden. The Nemoidians are portrayed in similar enough ways to the very old and racist depictions of Asians that it was hurtful to those of us who have been subject to that kind of thing, but they were just different enough from real life that people who were privileged enough to not ever have experienced that particular kind of racism completely missed it. The real poison from this kind of subtle racism is that is makes you question if you even want to bring it up because you would get so easily shouted down.
Do I think the Nemoidians are Asian? No. Do I think I am a Nemoidian? No. But did I still twist in my seat with a lump in my gut because I felt like I was being made fun of? Oh yes. It's not a problem of separating fantasy from reality. It's a problem that sometimes things hit to close to home even if they aren't meant to. Then to make it worse, these themes are ideas are repeated or used in more personal situations, like in a TTRPG with friends. Unwitting friends who use stereotypes and tropes in ways not meant to be harmful, because they don't know, and then all of a sudden your friend group no longer feels safe. Because if they can think this way about them, do they maybe secretly think that way about me? I have been blindsided by well meaning racism from friends before and it's almost worse than badly intended racism because it chips away at the security you feel around your friends.
This was my experience with a space fantasy franchise, and it is similar to things I have heard from people about orcs or drow in D&D. They made people uncomfortable and unsafe. Not because they are directly connecting orcs or drow with real life peoples, but because the language used to describe people directly mirrors, echoes, triggers, etc. language that we are subject to in real life and is thus hurtful.
Is that understandable?
While i can understand the feeling, here is the issue with things like your Nemoidian issue That's 100% impossible to prevent. People are going to see thing in various images that only they see (or few others), based upon their life's history. And people are going to see thing that may look bad to them while it doesn't look that way to anyone else. No way around that... there just isn't. There are too few variations you can create vs the vast number of ways people can see things.
So there has to be an acceptance of what was done and how we choose to see it.. and it is a choice. We can assume the worse or we can assume not the worse. We can note the similarities and understand that it's just how WE are seeing things.. and not demand others see them the say way. Yes, there are things that are obviously done a certain way that most/all see... those we deal with. But the rest, we just accept that it's on us and we learn to move past it.. to, maybe, not always see the worst of things.
Honestly, I think we could stand to take a step back and ask why so many people are so hell-bent on never giving WotC/Hasbro an inch. Is it because they have a long and enduring track record of punitive litigious behavior against any 3PP that fails to toe an arbitrary and ever shifting line of morality? Not that I’ve seen in any earlier discussions. Or is it because this narrative of WotC/Hasbro as malicious fiends out to ruin everything you hold dear has been promulgated alongside the reasonable community pushback against 1.1? Quite a few online creators went on the attack hard over the issue, and frankly for me it crossed the line from pushing back on what I wholly agree would have been gross overreach if it had gone through as we heard it to a torches and pitchforks “kill the beast!” mentality in fairly short order.
I’m not saying we can unreservedly trust the companies, but I do think the insistence that no faith whatsoever can be placed on the companies is more the product of yellow journalism than actual consideration of the issue.
What about WotC' s trust in 3rd party creators and the players themselves? Seems to be absent if Wizards feels they ought to hold such authority over everyone. And for those who would support and argue for that regime, where is your own trust in the community? Telling us that we should trust Wizards when you clearly don't trust us is rather...hypocritical, is it not?
I trust the community to the exact same degree I trust the companies; a large body of individuals who in aggregate are neither good nor bad, simply human. The community is demonstrably able to keep WotC honest if they overreach into our end, and by the same token I think it is fair WotC has some mechanism to at least demonstrably disassociate themselves if a community product overreaches in how it uses a WotC license.
They do have such a mechanism. The license itself takes the position that they are not responsible for what people do with it (and rightly so, because they are not). That is disassociation. A clause like 6F would be the opposite. It means WotC is assuming responsibility for what people do with their license, and also gives them power to act against those people. It forces them to take a both position and to act.
Now that they've moved the SRD to CC, they've disassociated themselves further. Congrats! You already got what you are arguing for.
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
All forms of media can devolve into hateful content. From books to art, music, video and even drawings on a cave can be used for good or evil.
Some communities attempt to solve this by preventing speech. Post WW2 Germany is an example of how this has successfully improved a culture. At the exact same time, post 1991 has seen the same family of restrictions used catastrophically in Russia. Generally societies and communities that allow speech, even that speech that is distasteful, are better. Not because of hateful speech but because opposing speech is possible.
A classic example of this is the book "To Kill a Mockingbird". It has repeatedly been banned for its content. It uses strong language, description of r*pe, and the n-word. Taken at its surface level it is clear the book is the sort of hateful content that policies would try to prevent. But that doesn't express the truth - the book is designed to challenge the views of those in the 1960s. It is a Pulitzer Prize winner in fact and a staple reading for many classrooms.
The problem is that once you start trying to ban content you prevent as much content opposing hateful content as you do supporting it. The current culture of inclusivity has not always been the case - as few as 30 years ago most of what the DnD community finds laudable would have been immoral. Consider that society and communities change and it is generally through the written word that minds change.
Yes, for every "To Kill a Mockingbird" you will get something that is neither art nor redeemable. But if a community wants to grow - to evolve into its better self - it must be challenged at its very foundation.
Taking this closer to home - preventing hateful content is a very dangerous slippery slope. Lets take an example a pair of adventuring tropes. If you haven't had a DM give you one of these, then someday you will.
First, and hopefully one everyone can fully agree on - women should be treated with respect and dignity. If we make the rule that *every* woman must be treated that way then we close the door to stories (and thus games and adventures) where players are forced to respond to characters (npc) being treated with disrespect and indignity. You can write a "hateful" story that is *designed* to teach. The trope here is the abused woman who vows revenge on her abuser. Her abuse is not taken lightly and her pain is real. The story places her pain in front of you to reckon with. A DM will likely spin this so both helping her get revenge and refusing have negative consequences.
Another classic trope is "In the final room, you find a nursery - there is a toddler wearing the kings crest. Its clear this is the king's son, the butcher you just killed to save the kingdom. You know that if you let him live, his people will raise him and his anger will cause great harm to the kingdom. Yet you know its wrong to kill an innocent child but there is no way you can take him with you on the journey back". That is a trope for a reason - it presents adventurers with a choice - chose a great evil today or tomorrow. Its a moral choice designed to change the mind. It makes us better people by just being presented with the question - even if the choice of answers are distasteful.
Examples here can go on forever. A merchant in a wheelchair being ridiculed by bandits can teach the party to include everyone or can be a tool mock. A race/ancestry (goblins, kobolds) can be violent enemies to the adventuring party without drawing comparisons to real life cultures -- OR -- they can be a hateful representation of a real life race.
I oppose hate. Injustice is one of the few things that really angers me to be honest. But once a community - no matter how well intentioned - starts to restrict speech, it leads us down a path that absolutely kills story-telling.
So, no - the community / OGL doesn't need a clause designed to prevent hateful or non-inclusionary language. Not because I support those things, but because the line between To Kill A Mockingbird and a book advocating racism is ugly, wide, and fuzzy. To poorly quote a judge - "I can't define it, but I know what it is when I see it". If we define it narrowly we lose art, if we define it broadly we do nothing anyway but cause controversy.
You have it backwards. The shield that allows "bigots" to publish whatever they want is called a Bill of Rights. A morality clause in a publishing license would instead be a hammer to attack whomever the publisher deems immoral that uses their license.
No, I don't have it backwards. For one Freedom of Speech is mainly an American concept, and it doesn't actually apply to every country that Wizards of the Coast does business in. Secondly, companies have every right - both legally and morally - to limit what you write and say when you are using their products and intellectual properties. The Open Game License is a legal permission that grants you extra privileges, you are not required to sign it and I would recommend not doing so if you are worried about losing your "rights".
Also, morality clauses are common in numerous different contracts. Regardless, I never actually proposed a morality clause be implemented. What I actually said was that an anti-bigotry clause didn't need to come in the form of a morality one. It is extremely frustrating when people respond to points I never actually made, because I didn't propose the type of clause you are arguing against.
Wizards cannot be held responsible for what 3rd party creators do with their property, because that would be collective punishment.
Of course WotC has a right to put whatever they can think of into a contract. I don't recall saying otherwise? Regardless, there is no obligation for them to have a morality clause, and if it severely harms their business when they try to add one (as it obviously has), why do you insist that it still happen? Why do you hate the company so much that you want them to destroy themselves to "protect" (i.e. please) you?
“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
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I could see this, but I feel like there should be a separate place for educated opinions. So in previous threads I was saying that I think such a body should be transparent to the public with all their processes and criteria as well as have a review and appeals process. I think that would be the place to hear from the community, personally, in the feedback process.
What is there to fear from such a disagreement, though? Unless you just fear disagreement itself?
If you would indulge me in actually writing out what you mean instead of just referencing me?
Me included. Again, from above, the issue with having bioessentialist or racist ideas in gaming is not that we confuse fantasy for reality, it is that the themes echo directly things that we experience in real life and being exposed to those echoes is harmful to us. We do not think we are orcs. We do not think orcs are black people. We do, however, think that the kinds of language and behavior used for orcs sounds enough like the language and behavior used for real life minority groups that the text itself is hurtful. Does that make sense?
Can I give a personal example?
When Star Wars IX: Duel of the Fates came out I found myself very uncomfortable with the portrayal of the Nemoidians. It took a little while for me to even understand why it was that they made me uncomfortable because it was so ... insidiously hidden. The Nemoidians are portrayed in similar enough ways to the very old and racist depictions of Asians that it was hurtful to those of us who have been subject to that kind of thing, but they were just different enough from real life that people who were privileged enough to not ever have experienced that particular kind of racism completely missed it. The real poison from this kind of subtle racism is that is makes you question if you even want to bring it up because you would get so easily shouted down.
Do I think the Nemoidians are Asian? No. Do I think I am a Nemoidian? No. But did I still twist in my seat with a lump in my gut because I felt like I was being made fun of? Oh yes. It's not a problem of separating fantasy from reality. It's a problem that sometimes things hit to close to home even if they aren't meant to. Then to make it worse, these themes are ideas are repeated or used in more personal situations, like in a TTRPG with friends. Unwitting friends who use stereotypes and tropes in ways not meant to be harmful, because they don't know, and then all of a sudden your friend group no longer feels safe. Because if they can think this way about them, do they maybe secretly think that way about me? I have been blindsided by well meaning racism from friends before and it's almost worse than badly intended racism because it chips away at the security you feel around your friends.
This was my experience with a space fantasy franchise, and it is similar to things I have heard from people about orcs or drow in D&D. They made people uncomfortable and unsafe. Not because they are directly connecting orcs or drow with real life peoples, but because the language used to describe people directly mirrors, echoes, triggers, etc. language that we are subject to in real life and is thus hurtful.
Is that understandable?
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 don't think you've ever asked me this, actually, but like I said in my first post in this thread I think OGL 1.0 is stuck the way it is forever. If any sort of anti-bigotry clause were to go in an OGL, it would be in the future.
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!
Because other people's intellectual property is not their sphere of operations. Because I don't trust other people to define what is hateful when they argue orcs being evil is racist because orcs are NOT real and I and others don't have to accept the analogy other people make about orcs to try to fit it into some real-world conflict. What this really is about is having a small group of people deciding what is appropriate to others and having the power to make it stick. That is what is objectionable.
By the time you're talking about a panel, you're well outside of what WotC can or would do internally. The standard way of achieving this, which has been done by plenty of businesses in the past, is:
There is no technical barrier to doing that today; the barriers actually have to do with convincing a bunch of diverse interests to actually agree, and convincing buyers to care.
Thank you for some more practical considerations. I don't have the knowledge to talk about actionable stuff like this.
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!
Hold up.
I was specifically answering a question about someone who couldn't understand why fictional portrayals of fictional species could be hurtful in this way. Also I used a very personal example. So maybe slow your roll just a little. A little less "flimsy" thrown my way about my actual feelings would be appreciated.
None of the rest of what you said absolutely has to be made in direct counterpoint to this exact example, so I'm not going to respond to you in this case.
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!
...had no clue there was even a controversy
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)
^ This guy, right here.
When they had something like 40K responses to 1D&D surveys, yes 15K represents a minority
There were an estimated 50 million people playing 5e worldwide in 2021, which is the most recent estimate I could find with a quick Google
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)
LMFAO so disingenuous. What about the relative timeframes over which responses were gathered? What about the relative accessibility of the surveys? Got a source on the 40k too?
I specifically acknowledged market forces in another post. Like I said, Paizo leapt at the chance to play white knight to the community. Like I’ve said, people made opposing WotC on all fronts into a Cause, regardless of how much bearing it had on the actual issue. None of that changes the fact that by the apparent metrics the turnout for the OGL survey was a small portion of the community.
Refusing to engage with their bad faith gaslighting abusive "survey" is not evidence that they didn't care. It's evidence that they didn't engage. I didn't vote in this "survey" because I found the entire thing to be disingenuous. I still don't actually believe that the survey which was wildly in favor of keeping the OGL as-is was the actual reason they backed down.
Some combination of:
Multiple bad legal arguments
Strong risk of losing IP
Pressure from shareholders/stockholders
Hasbro's need for reliable cash and Wizards/DDB subs drying up
Worry about other projects like the movie about to drop and DDB as a huge sunk cost
Worry about competitors selling massive volumes of competing IP/ Various open source projects
But yeah, just because someone didn't specifically come here to participate in WotC Gaslighting doesn't mean that they didn't care or were neutral towards it.
Holy shit this devolved quickly. I was gone for what, half a day?
Guys, keep it civil. WotC has rolled back the new OGL. That is exactly what you asked for. Now there isn't anything to stop bigots from publishing their shit. Yes, there wasn't anything to stop it before, but just because there's been a hole in your roof for 20 years, doesn't mean you should do nothing about it. Sheesh.
[REDACTED]
Thank you for your story, I can understand it and appreciate it, even if my own experience has been different from yours, however I would point out that you referred to how the Nemoidans were using asian stereotypes and this was the issue. And I would agree with you! I can say that, though I am not Asian, when I read your story I could hear the dialogue in my mind, and it made me cringe.
The Vistani in CoS are a racist portrayal of real world Romani. The old Oriental Adventures book is also problematic. In those cases those fictional versions of those people were inappropriate.
But the Orcs of 5e D&D are not fictional versions of real life people using real-life tropes. They are described as "Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." They are clearly not humans, and it is possible to be a good, non-racist person, who uses orcs in their game without them being analogues for anyone in the real world.
"Orcs are savage raiders and pillagers with stooped postures, low foreheads, and piggish faces with prominent lower canines that resemble tusks." MM p245 (original printing)
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
It also doesn’t follow that they did care. Survey participation is a limited data point, but we can see that the basis of responses cited is markedly less than in other surveys, which as a corollary means it is much less likely to have contained a representative sample of the population.
While i can understand the feeling, here is the issue with things like your Nemoidian issue That's 100% impossible to prevent. People are going to see thing in various images that only they see (or few others), based upon their life's history. And people are going to see thing that may look bad to them while it doesn't look that way to anyone else. No way around that... there just isn't. There are too few variations you can create vs the vast number of ways people can see things.
So there has to be an acceptance of what was done and how we choose to see it.. and it is a choice. We can assume the worse or we can assume not the worse. We can note the similarities and understand that it's just how WE are seeing things.. and not demand others see them the say way. Yes, there are things that are obviously done a certain way that most/all see... those we deal with. But the rest, we just accept that it's on us and we learn to move past it.. to, maybe, not always see the worst of things.
They do have such a mechanism. The license itself takes the position that they are not responsible for what people do with it (and rightly so, because they are not). That is disassociation. A clause like 6F would be the opposite. It means WotC is assuming responsibility for what people do with their license, and also gives them power to act against those people. It forces them to take a both position and to act.
Now that they've moved the SRD to CC, they've disassociated themselves further. Congrats! You already got what you are arguing for.
“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
All forms of media can devolve into hateful content. From books to art, music, video and even drawings on a cave can be used for good or evil.
Some communities attempt to solve this by preventing speech. Post WW2 Germany is an example of how this has successfully improved a culture. At the exact same time, post 1991 has seen the same family of restrictions used catastrophically in Russia. Generally societies and communities that allow speech, even that speech that is distasteful, are better. Not because of hateful speech but because opposing speech is possible.
A classic example of this is the book "To Kill a Mockingbird". It has repeatedly been banned for its content. It uses strong language, description of r*pe, and the n-word. Taken at its surface level it is clear the book is the sort of hateful content that policies would try to prevent. But that doesn't express the truth - the book is designed to challenge the views of those in the 1960s. It is a Pulitzer Prize winner in fact and a staple reading for many classrooms.
The problem is that once you start trying to ban content you prevent as much content opposing hateful content as you do supporting it. The current culture of inclusivity has not always been the case - as few as 30 years ago most of what the DnD community finds laudable would have been immoral. Consider that society and communities change and it is generally through the written word that minds change.
Yes, for every "To Kill a Mockingbird" you will get something that is neither art nor redeemable. But if a community wants to grow - to evolve into its better self - it must be challenged at its very foundation.
Taking this closer to home - preventing hateful content is a very dangerous slippery slope. Lets take an example a pair of adventuring tropes. If you haven't had a DM give you one of these, then someday you will.
First, and hopefully one everyone can fully agree on - women should be treated with respect and dignity. If we make the rule that *every* woman must be treated that way then we close the door to stories (and thus games and adventures) where players are forced to respond to characters (npc) being treated with disrespect and indignity. You can write a "hateful" story that is *designed* to teach. The trope here is the abused woman who vows revenge on her abuser. Her abuse is not taken lightly and her pain is real. The story places her pain in front of you to reckon with. A DM will likely spin this so both helping her get revenge and refusing have negative consequences.
Another classic trope is "In the final room, you find a nursery - there is a toddler wearing the kings crest. Its clear this is the king's son, the butcher you just killed to save the kingdom. You know that if you let him live, his people will raise him and his anger will cause great harm to the kingdom. Yet you know its wrong to kill an innocent child but there is no way you can take him with you on the journey back". That is a trope for a reason - it presents adventurers with a choice - chose a great evil today or tomorrow. Its a moral choice designed to change the mind. It makes us better people by just being presented with the question - even if the choice of answers are distasteful.
Examples here can go on forever. A merchant in a wheelchair being ridiculed by bandits can teach the party to include everyone or can be a tool mock. A race/ancestry (goblins, kobolds) can be violent enemies to the adventuring party without drawing comparisons to real life cultures -- OR -- they can be a hateful representation of a real life race.
I oppose hate. Injustice is one of the few things that really angers me to be honest. But once a community - no matter how well intentioned - starts to restrict speech, it leads us down a path that absolutely kills story-telling.
So, no - the community / OGL doesn't need a clause designed to prevent hateful or non-inclusionary language. Not because I support those things, but because the line between To Kill A Mockingbird and a book advocating racism is ugly, wide, and fuzzy. To poorly quote a judge - "I can't define it, but I know what it is when I see it". If we define it narrowly we lose art, if we define it broadly we do nothing anyway but cause controversy.
"Freedom of speech is granted unambiguous protection in international law by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which is binding on around 150 nations."
Nope, not mainly an American thing all.
"International humanitarian law posits that no person may be punished for acts that he or she did not commit."
Wizards cannot be held responsible for what 3rd party creators do with their property, because that would be collective punishment.
Of course WotC has a right to put whatever they can think of into a contract. I don't recall saying otherwise? Regardless, there is no obligation for them to have a morality clause, and if it severely harms their business when they try to add one (as it obviously has), why do you insist that it still happen? Why do you hate the company so much that you want them to destroy themselves to "protect" (i.e. please) you?
“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