"Protections put in place to stop the spread of hate in our property could be co-opted at some foggy point in the far distant future by evil businessmen to curtail the rights and ideals of marginalized folk. Therefore we should have absolutely no protections whatsoever against the spread of hate in our property, thus allowing hate to spread freely and without hindrance - harming marginalized people right now - so that evil future businessmen can't harm marginalized people at some indeterminate point in the future."
"Protections put in place to stop the spread of hate in our property could be co-opted at some foggy point in the far distant future by evil businessmen to curtail the rights and ideals of marginalized folk. Therefore we should have absolutely no protections whatsoever against the spread of hate in our property, thus allowing hate to spread freely and without hindrance - harming marginalized people right now - so that evil future businessmen can't harm marginalized people at some indeterminate point in the future."
Sure. That makes loads of sense. [/sarcasm]
Except that none of you expressing this sentiment have been able to suggest a workable method for this clause.
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"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?
People keep asking for a morality clause, and no one seems able to present a cogent explanation for how one would realistically work.
Ah yes, another common argument that has no actual merit: “but how would this work?”
Easy. The same way every single other morality clause in licensing works. They’re quite common, and pretending like they’re a novel invention that hasn’t been solved for years is so laughable as to call into question the sincerity of your position.
They work pretty easily - the content owner holds the right to decide something is wrong, they get a period of time to say “we are terminating your license if you don’t fix it”, then the third party either complied or loses the license of sues the licensor for breach of contract and gets a court to decide.
This isn’t something novel or new - this kind of language has been around for decades.
People keep asking for a morality clause, and no one seems able to present a cogent explanation for how one would realistically work.
Ah yes, another common argument that has no actual merit: “but how would this work?”
Easy. The same way every single other morality clause in licensing works. They’re quite common, and pretending like they’re a novel invention that hasn’t been solved for years is so laughable as to call into question the sincerity of your position.
They work pretty easily - the content owner holds the right to decide something is wrong, they get a period of time to say “we are terminating your license if you don’t fix it”, then the third party either complied or loses the license of sues the licensor for breach of contract and gets a court to decide.
This isn’t something novel or new - this kind of language has been around for decades.
So your best suggestion for this morality clause is: Let the big company with billions of dollars decide what's acceptable, and if you disagree you can try to get justice by suing the big company with billions of dollars.
Do you have a suggestion for who in the company will make these decisions?
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"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?
People keep asking for a morality clause, and no one seems able to present a cogent explanation for how one would realistically work.
Ah yes, another common argument that has no actual merit: “but how would this work?”
Easy. The same way every single other morality clause in licensing works. They’re quite common, and pretending like they’re a novel invention that hasn’t been solved for years is so laughable as to call into question the sincerity of your position.
They work pretty easily - the content owner holds the right to decide something is wrong, they get a period of time to say “we are terminating your license if you don’t fix it”, then the third party either complied or loses the license of sues the licensor for breach of contract and gets a court to decide.
This isn’t something novel or new - this kind of language has been around for decades.
Dude, you know full well that's not what they were asking about.
The problem is the company having Carte Blanche on the determination of what constitutes problematic content.
WOTC could look at a 3rd party book and state something along the lines of "This product doesn't have enough <fill in blank> representation and is therefore hateful/problematic/etc. We are terminating your license unless you fix it."
"Protections put in place to stop the spread of hate in our property could be co-opted at some foggy point in the far distant future by evil businessmen to curtail the rights and ideals of marginalized folk. Therefore we should have absolutely no protections whatsoever against the spread of hate in our property, thus allowing hate to spread freely and without hindrance - harming marginalized people right now - so that evil future businessmen can't harm marginalized people at some indeterminate point in the future."
Sure. That makes loads of sense. [/sarcasm]
Except that none of you expressing this sentiment have been able to suggest a workable method for this clause.
Why is it my job to come up with a framework for doing this? I'm an electronics technician, not a sensitivity consultant or a contract/IP lawyer or a public relations person or a marketing head or any of the other jobs out there better equipped to propose ideas. I'm the customer, not a product development person. My job is to say "I don't want hate in my D&D", and if I think Wizards has adequately met that goal I continue to offer my custom.
Stop demanding that I solve the problem myself in five minutes in the space of a single forum post when the actual solution is something every reasonable person knows would need to be hammered out through weeks or months of work from qualified professionals. I'm not going to give you a half-baked amateur proposal you can tear apart and say "see? This idea doesn't work, therefore there's no point in trying to protect D&D and its players from hate."
People keep asking for a morality clause, and no one seems able to present a cogent explanation for how one would realistically work.
Ah yes, another common argument that has no actual merit: “but how would this work?”
Easy. The same way every single other morality clause in licensing works. They’re quite common, and pretending like they’re a novel invention that hasn’t been solved for years is so laughable as to call into question the sincerity of your position.
They work pretty easily - the content owner holds the right to decide something is wrong, they get a period of time to say “we are terminating your license if you don’t fix it”, then the third party either complied or loses the license of sues the licensor for breach of contract and gets a court to decide.
This isn’t something novel or new - this kind of language has been around for decades.
So your best suggestion for this morality clause is: Let the big company with billions of dollars decide what's acceptable, and if you disagree you can try to get justice by suing the big company with billions of dollars.
Do you have a suggestion for who in the company will make these decisions?
My suggestion is to let the owner of speech exercise control over their own speech. And, if people don’t like that speech, they should feel free to publish whatever they want with their own speech - because that is all a morality clause does. It literally does nothing to limit a third party’s speech; it only limits a third party’s ability to use the underlying content creator’s speech.
As for who should actually do it? Wizards is contracting with a third party who will review all of their own content; it stands to reason that group could review third party content flagged for attention. Then Wizards would be holding the content to the same standards they hold themselves to (and it would have to be concerning enough that they’d want to pay a third party to conduct a review). But the actual “who” is irrelevant to the underlying right - Wizards’ right to control Wizards’ content.
There is an excellent play (which was also filmed multiple times) called "Inherit the Wind" that is poignant to this discussion.
In the play, a teacher (in 1925) is arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution in a small-town school. A lawyer defends him against a legal team led by a preacher. The play was written in the 1950s as a reponse to the Communist witch-hunts of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
The lessons of this play are worth considering. Here is a CliffsNotes page that has a great summary.
Here are some important ideas from the book as summarized in the CliffsNotes article.
"During the early 1950s, known as the McCarthy era, actors and writers were blacklisted — that is, refused work because they had been accused of having some connection to Communism."
"During this period, people stopped expressing their thoughts, beliefs, or ideas, afraid they would lose their livelihood or worse. Being writers, Lawrence and Lee became aware of the dangerous situation created when laws are passed limiting the freedom to think and speak. When writing Inherit the Wind, the playwrights were not concerned with the controversy between evolution and creation, the focus of the Scopes trial. Instead, they were concerned with the censoring or limiting of an individual's freedom to think. The authors used the issue of evolution as a metaphor for control over an individual's thoughts or beliefs. Inherit the Wind, then, is Lawrence and Lee's response to the McCarthy era."
"In a society that honors freedom of thought, it is necessary to value beliefs that differ from one's own. Even though Drummond is referring to the evolutionist/fundamentalist conflict in Inherit the Wind, the issue of intolerance and lack of respect for differing beliefs and thoughts is evident during the McCarthy era as well. People's lives were ruined for even the slightest connection to Communism."
As for this:
My suggestion is to let the owner of speech exercise control over their own speech.
That makes as assumption about whether or not the content of a 3PP's work is speech owned by WotC. I would argue it's not unless the 3PP used protected IP, and much of what was originally covered in OGL 1.0a was not protected IP. Of course, it means nothing until it's tested in court.
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"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?
Ok, let's say I wrote a book series called, say, Parry Hotter that went very popular. Since I really like my fandom (and the increased publicity and therefore income it would generate for my products), I work a deal that would allow them to legally, and without concern that I'd sue them, create Fanfiction and even make their own products.
Should I be able to say to someone "no, I don't want you to be able to hijack the work, the love and passion input into it, in order to propagate Nazism, antisemitism and holocaust denial, that stands contrary to the ideals I wrote Parry Hotter for, so you can't"?
It's up to you and how you license it. If you wanted to *revoke* someone's right to do this then Creative Commons and licenses in the spirit of "Open" (in the context of "Open Source") may not be what you want to use. More people reading your books is great and some authors feel that letting fans creating derivative work helps sales and are permissive but others very much don't much for the reasons you mention. As they said on Star Trek: DS9 "The problem with giving freedom of choice is that sometimes they make the wrong choice." If you're nervous about such a thing you probably want to reserve that right to yank stuff back. The bigger issue, IMO, is promising "I swear I'll never sue or legally threaten anyone who uses my work ever" and then doing so anyway because someone did something with your work that is very against your personal beliefs.
One other thing to note is that RPGs are different than other media like books and films. With RPGs the more people who are using a system the better it is for the creator of that system. Beyond just free advertising people buy core books (or THREE core books in the case of D&D for time immemorial). And there's no way any company can churn out the type of content that appeals to a wider audience. This is similar to the idea of open source software which is what inspired the OGL. Hence the idea of an open license for RPGs. And, it should be noted, this has worked out great for Wizards for the past two decades unless every analyst I've ever listened to or read has been totaly wrong (which I'm not removing the possibility of but I doubt).
I understand some people are vehemently against this clause and others defend it. I certainly have my opinions on it but in terms of 'open' in this context this kind of clause is drifting away from that definition. The idea for me, and others, is not that Wizards doesn't have the 'right' to constrict their IP (whether legal or morally), but is that such a clause 'open'? I'd say no. Some are willing to sacrifice some of the 'openess' of D&D in exchange for more control by Wizards and others aren't. There isn't an objective 'right' or 'wrong' answer even if there are strong opinions.
With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on we're all damaged....
I'm pretty sure that wasn't actually Picard (which is what was so ironic in what he said) and, more to the point, he was criticising the Admiral for using her speech to vent her hate for Romulans and abused the privilege extended to her by the Federation in order to magnify her own speech to do so.
I'm not sure it's as clearly in favour of your point as you think.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I quoted this because it fits exactly here. Star Trek context is not as important here as a massage that it carries. I choose to quote Picard to keep conversation light. Censorship, except very few blatant cases never leads to anything good. I am writing this from Poland, we had "pleasure" to have censorship here for many decades due to communism. I would write something further, but I do not want to discuss politics and ideologies on game forum.
Except, of course, this is not censorship. This is someone saying “you can borrow my car, you just can’t drive my car drunk. If you want to drive drunk, you can drive your own car.”
The “censorship” argument in licensing is and always has been an effective, but still basic argument. These clauses are not about censoring or controlling others’ speech - they are about controlling one’s own speech when others are using it.
the problem I have is who is able to judge what is awful and wrong in a increasingly fluid world. Things that 5 years ago were considered wrong are now right and normal. If you go around the world right now, how do you make a single standard? Different things are different levels of ok in the same country. Just look at the USA.
Whose right is right? And when could it be ok? Could a book exploring defeating a clearly racist or bigoted character be ok? Are characters who have these things as flaws be ok? What if they are clearly shown to be bad people? How about a book that is about freedom from oppression where you explore themes and rise above them, and make it better?
The problem I have is there isn’t a set of guidelines we could give and no one arbitrator will be able to cover this.
which is why I feel like these things should be left for the public to decide whether they are ok or not. Reviews can highlight problems easily. I know we keep mentioning the gygax case. But if he produced that book and it was just racist then I am pretty confident it would fail as a product.
but if a book finds a way to explore a narrative that touches on these themes in a way that is respectful, and clearly labelled then I am ok with that. There is clearly a line but I think we are never going to codify this in a way that works. I think the only thing that follows the times and changing morals of the world is to leave it to players and purchasers to judge if a product is of good taste or not, and warn others to avoid if it is not.
a bad book that has all the worst stuff is that. A bad book made by specific people. Those who play the game know it isn’t made by wizards the same way an awful fanfic that makes the cast of a film racist or sexist isn’t the same. It may carry the title, or names of characters. But it isn’t a reflection on that. (Yes I know fanfic is free).
Whenever I see this sort of thing, I have to wonder if anybody is actually paying attention to the conversation. It's so depressingly common. "Are books allowed to have themes of defeating and rising above hate, exclusionism, and evil or is it exclusionist to even mention those things?"
No. No it is not, and it never has been. Hate is normalizing or glorifying those sorts of actions, attitudes, or behaviors, or through negligence holding those actions, attitudes or behaviors up as an expected part of worldbuilding. Hate is making your hero NPC's intolerance and bigotry their Ideal and holding it up as a source of strength. Hate is presenting the enslaved people in your module as deserving of their treatment and holding up "obediently serving their betters" as an ideal to aspire to. Hate is presenting it as normal, expected, and no big deal that certain peoples in your work are discriminated against and trying to convince the players they should join in because that's just how the world is supposed to be.
Hate is a mindset, an intention. People keep asking for a fixed, objective definition of hate, an exhaustive list of what is and is not hateful. No such list can ever exist because hate isn't objective. It fundamentally cannot be objective. Hate is an active choice made by one person at the expense of another person. Hate is negligence so gross and thorough it becomes no different than malice. This constant hand-wringing about what does and does not qualify as hate is ridiculous and serves only as a distraction against the idea that hate should not be tolerated in our game. It's nitpickery and nonsensical prevarication that does nothing but maliciously muddle the issue, and I for one am increasingly tired of seeing it.
I feel like you are misunderstanding me here entirely but I also get the feeling you don’t particularly want to talk about it.
So let me be clear here. I am anti hate.
One of my points was that a list is NOT possible. the fact you throw that a list is impossible in my face makes me think you did not read what I wrote at all. I have done no hand wringing whatsoever. I have done NOTHING malicious. Believe me I am anti hate. I have done plenty to deal with hate. Do not try to tarnish me with trying to be malicious.
if you want to understand why I said what I said, or if you want me to try and explain to get my point across in a way that actually matches my thoughts I will.
if you want to come across and accuse me of maliciously doing anything I really would hope you can point to something I’ve done.
The “censorship” argument in licensing is and always has been an effective, but still basic argument. These clauses are not about censoring or controlling others’ speech - they are about controlling one’s own speech when others are using it.
And this is where we appear to disagree with you. I do not agree that the content created by a 3PP using the OGL and the SRD (as it was before being added to CC) would be the same as being WotC's speech.
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"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?
Makes no less sense than people having convinced themselves they couldn't possibly be guilty of bigotry by virtue of little more than how frequently they talk about it and point their fingers at others.
I've decades of lived experience throughout which I have learned the hard way that some of the most ostensibly anti-racist people are some of the most racist.
You know, I've gotten this a number of times now. Multiple people have accused me of being a white supremacist because I'm arguing the case for more protection against hate rather than less, and I'm very confused as to why it keeps coming up. I'd like to know what, in my arguments, gives the impression that I'm all for suppressing the little guy?
I'm not going to claim to be 'innocent of bigotry' because I think Ophidimancer is right - exclusionism and bigotry are endemic weaknesses of the human mind, bred into us and reinforced by hundreds of years of society not giving a shit about it and building itself up around the idea. I'm no more immune to it than anyone else, and whatever my self-image is now I grew up a white straight male taken by most to be cisgender. Can't help it - that was the body I was born in and I can't change it any more than anyone else can, no matter how much I might wish to. I try and keep cognizant of that fact and listen when people who didn't grow up with such a convenient mask speak to me about their ills, but I'm starting to get angry as much as confused over why so many people are accusing me of being exactly the sort of person I've been arguing for days now deserves less of a platform in our game.
Ignorance, I'll cop to. I did not grow up/live in the same sort of privation others did and that means I'm blind to that experience and cannot speak to or for it. I was not aware that was what I was doing, and if asked I wouldn't have described myself as doing anything of the sort.
Being actively, deliberately hateful I will not cop to, and I'm getting mighty tired of people projecting it onto me and filling my PM box with all sorts of rather awful slurs.
Racist / Hateful / Offensive works are self-limiting. People of good conscience will avoid them. Trying to censor people is a pointless endeavor and often has the opposite of the desired effect.
There are definitely two camps (at least) against an “anti-hate” clause:
- Those who legitimately care about how an “anti-hate” clause could be weaponized against marginalized people
- Those who pretend to care because pretending to care lets them continue to be obtuse about what constitutes “hate”
I'm concerned that it can and will be weaponized period. Specifically where the weapon is pointed isn't as important as the problem of creating it in the first place. And frankly I'm concerned that it would be used against me personally. That being said against marginalized people is both the worst possible and most likely target.
In my current dnd game, one of the pc's had the opportunity to negotiate with a goddess for a boon. He asked for a powerful magical weapon and was rebuked, then agreed with her after a bit of discussion. The question she had for him, in a much more long winded and elegant way is what happens after you die or someone takes this weapon from you somehow? It was particularly on point for this game because the primary problem the pc's are dealing with is a set of powerful magical swords which are causing extreme problems that nobody can destroy.
This problem applies in real life. Personally I don't believe Wotc as presently constituted can be trusted with this kind of weapon. Their track record is worse than the market in general of late. But even if I did believe the current owners and leadership of wotc could be trusted to use this weapon only for good, it is inconceivable that the company will not eventually be sold to or lead by someone less trustworthy. The example earlier in this thread of a sudi prince buying wotc is perfectly on point for the kind of danger this creates.
I can't even see why wotc needs the weapon in the first place. The only actual hateful work I have seen any discussion of is whatever abomination E Gagyx is trying to publish. People kept bringing it up in ogl threads till I want to tear my hair every time I see it again because he isn't even attempting to publish it under the OGL. So far not a single person in the various discussions on this site or reddit that I have read has discussed a single actual published hateful rpg work. The only prepublication work discussed is the Gagyx star frontiers remake. I would not be surprised if someone somewhere has actually published something hateful related to dnd in some way, the bar to self publication today is fairly low. The fact that even people who are riled up about the possibility of someone publishing hateful dnd material and arguing a dangerous weapon is needed to defend against it don't have any examples of it happening tells me that any such material is so obscure it might as well not exist. This is after over 20 years without a weapon to defend against it Why should we create something so dangerous now? Keep the dangerous magical swords fantasy objects only please.
There are definitely two camps (at least) against an “anti-hate” clause:
- Those who legitimately care about how an “anti-hate” clause could be weaponized against marginalized people
- Those who pretend to care because pretending to care lets them continue to be obtuse about what constitutes “hate”
I'm concerned that it can and will be weaponized period. Specifically where the weapon is pointed isn't as important as the problem of creating it in the first place. And frankly I'm concerned that it would be used against me personally. That being said against marginalized people is both the worst possible and most likely target.
In my current dnd game, one of the pc's had the opportunity to negotiate with a goddess for a boon. He asked for a powerful magical weapon and was rebuked, then agreed with her after a bit of discussion. The question she had for him, in a much more long winded and elegant way is what happens after you die or someone takes this weapon from you somehow? It was particularly on point for this game because the primary problem the pc's are dealing with is a set of powerful magical swords which are causing extreme problems that nobody can destroy.
This problem applies in real life. Personally I don't believe Wotc as presently constituted can be trusted with this kind of weapon. Their track record is worse than the market in general of late. But even if I did believe the current owners and leadership of wotc could be trusted to use this weapon only for good, it is inconceivable that the company will not eventually be sold to or lead by someone less trustworthy. The example earlier in this thread of a sudi prince buying wotc is perfectly on point for the kind of danger this creates.
I can't even see why wotc needs the weapon in the first place. The only actual hateful work I have seen any discussion of is whatever abomination E Gagyx is trying to publish. People kept bringing it up in ogl threads till I want to tear my hair every time I see it again because he isn't even attempting to publish it under the OGL. So far not a single person in the various discussions on this site or reddit that I have read has discussed a single actual published hateful rpg work. The only prepublication work discussed is the Gagyx star frontiers remake. I would not be surprised if someone somewhere has actually published something hateful related to dnd in some way, the bar to self publication today is fairly low. The fact that even people who are riled up about the possibility of someone publishing hateful dnd material and arguing a dangerous weapon is needed to defend against it don't have any examples of it happening tells me that any such material is so obscure it might as well not exist. This is after over 20 years without a weapon to defend against it Why should we create something so dangerous now? Keep the dangerous magical swords fantasy objects only please.
I'll field this one. Even though 23 years of there not really being any sort of OGL-based restriction on bigoted content now folks are nervous we will get more of that content now that the SRD that it is in Creative Commons although there is 0 difference to the OGL in re objectional content. Meanwhile there's the possibility multi billion dollar company sensitive to social media trends HQed in a country which recenetly has included culture wars over, *checks notes*, M&M advertising mascot body images and XBox power saving options would start looking much more critically on inclusive LGBTQ content in a way a lot of members of the community may find objectionable.
Honestly I think the latter is more likely than the former but they're both unlikely. Either way some people are more willing to deal with the possibility of the latter (which would include community pressure) than the former (which would depend almost entirely on WOTC corporate and PR leadership) and vice versa.
I feel like you are misunderstanding me here entirely but I also get the feeling you don’t particularly want to talk about it.
So let me be clear here. I am anti hate.
One of my points was that a list is NOT possible. the fact you throw that a list is impossible in my face makes me think you did not read what I wrote at all. I have done no hand wringing whatsoever. I have done NOTHING malicious. Believe me I am anti hate. I have done plenty to deal with hate. Do not try to tarnish me with trying to be malicious.
if you want to understand why I said what I said, or if you want me to try and explain to get my point across in a way that actually matches my thoughts I will.
if you want to come across and accuse me of maliciously doing anything I really would hope you can point to something I’ve done.
Right.
First of all, apologies. I did not mean to target you the way you're telling me I did; my ability to write is curtailed when I'm on my phone as I was when I wrote that post. I should have probably waited until I had a proper monitor and keyboard.
Second of all: I quoted you because you laid out plainly an argument I've seen dozens and dozens and dozens of times, in varying levels of faith, from a multitude of people. Namely, the idea that books/adventures/modules/products which include hateful content as a theme but do so whilst villifying it and using the product as a means of exploring these themes and why they're heinous would be considered "Hateful" the same way as loathesome content. Tarred with the same brush and cast aside despite its validity. The question is always "how do we know this isn't hateful?"
My argument is that such questions don't just miss akey difference between 'Dark' content and loathesome content, they miss the key difference. People want a definition of hateful content? I gave one in the post I wrote back to you - content which deliberately seeks to normalize, glorify, or otherwise celebrate actions, attitudes and behaviors that any reasonable person** understands would lead to the harm, ostracization, or diminishment of a group or people based on factors and circumstances of lifestyle, birth, or rearing, or content that is so grossly negligent in its construction as to result in the same end.
The word "deliberately" is critical there. As is the "Any Reasonable Person" wording - that's not "whichever random yaybo". 'Any Reasonable Person' is a well-defined legal term/standard used in a lot of cases like this which fundamentally rely on subjective judgment. In short (and Caerwyn, if I have this wrong please let me know and correct me), 'Any Reasonable Person' is a standard that seeks to take into account the average opinion of an average citizen of the region in which the prospective offense took place, as understood through polling, news, and other means of gauging the collective opinion of an area. Regardless, that's the key differentiator. 'Dark' content, which utilizes horrible themes that are given their due gravity and diligence, does not seek to normalize or glorify such actions, attitudes, or behaviors. Even when the horrible themes are considered 'normal' within the world.
Everybody's favorite example is Athas, the world of Dark Sun, where slavery, cannibalism, tyranny, and general awfulness are all considered the average norm. Arguments against constraints on hate like to say that Athas/Dark Sun would not be possible in a D&D where hateful content was restricted. Here's the thing - Athas is not held up as a shining example of a splendid world we should all aspire to. Athas is portrayed as a burned, dying miserable hellscape and an absolutely horrible place to live. Athas/Dark Sun is not hateful content, it is dark content. Those two are not and have never been the same thing. Nor even all that close, to be honest. I love dark content, I'm all in on shit like Grim Hollow and Van Richten's Guide. I think that stuff can make for incredible stories.
It's one of the reasons why I get so angry when bad-faith jerks try to use dark content as a shield for hateful content. Those two DO NOT COMPARE, they NEVER HAVE, and even the most basic understanding of how hate works should be enough to make that distinction. But I keep seeing the same damn argument over and over and over.
So yeah. That's why I wrote what I did. If that clarifies matters at all.
I feel like you are misunderstanding me here entirely but I also get the feeling you don’t particularly want to talk about it.
So let me be clear here. I am anti hate.
One of my points was that a list is NOT possible. the fact you throw that a list is impossible in my face makes me think you did not read what I wrote at all. I have done no hand wringing whatsoever. I have done NOTHING malicious. Believe me I am anti hate. I have done plenty to deal with hate. Do not try to tarnish me with trying to be malicious.
if you want to understand why I said what I said, or if you want me to try and explain to get my point across in a way that actually matches my thoughts I will.
if you want to come across and accuse me of maliciously doing anything I really would hope you can point to something I’ve done.
Right.
First of all, apologies. I did not mean to target you the way you're telling me I did; my ability to write is curtailed when I'm on my phone as I was when I wrote that post. I should have probably waited until I had a proper monitor and keyboard.
Second of all: I quoted you because you laid out plainly an argument I've seen dozens and dozens and dozens of times, in varying levels of faith, from a multitude of people. Namely, the idea that books/adventures/modules/products which include hateful content as a theme but do so whilst villifying it and using the product as a means of exploring these themes and why they're heinous would be considered "Hateful" the same way as loathesome content. Tarred with the same brush and cast aside despite its validity. The question is always "how do we know this isn't hateful?"
My argument is that such questions don't just miss akey difference between 'Dark' content and loathesome content, they miss the key difference. People want a definition of hateful content? I gave one in the post I wrote back to you - content which deliberately seeks to normalize, glorify, or otherwise celebrate actions, attitudes and behaviors that any reasonable person** understands would lead to the harm, ostracization, or diminishment of a group or people based on factors and circumstances of lifestyle, birth, or rearing, or content that is so grossly negligent in its construction as to result in the same end.
The word "deliberately" is critical there. As is the "Any Reasonable Person" wording - that's not "whichever random yaybo". 'Any Reasonable Person' is a well-defined legal term/standard used in a lot of cases like this which fundamentally rely on subjective judgment. In short (and Caerwyn, if I have this wrong please let me know and correct me), 'Any Reasonable Person' is a standard that seeks to take into account the average opinion of an average citizen of the region in which the prospective offense took place, as understood through polling, news, and other means of gauging the collective opinion of an area. Regardless, that's the key differentiator. 'Dark' content, which utilizes horrible themes that are given their due gravity and diligence, does not seek to normalize or glorify such actions, attitudes, or behaviors. Even when the horrible themes are considered 'normal' within the world.
Everybody's favorite example is Athas, the world of Dark Sun, where slavery, cannibalism, tyranny, and general awfulness are all considered the average norm. Arguments against constraints on hate like to say that Athas/Dark Sun would not be possible in a D&D where hateful content was restricted. Here's the thing - Athas is not held up as a shining example of a splendid world we should all aspire to. Athas is portrayed as a burned, dying miserable hellscape and an absolutely horrible place to live. Athas/Dark Sun is not hateful content, it is dark content. Those two are not and have never been the same thing. Nor even all that close, to be honest. I love dark content, I'm all in on shit like Grim Hollow and Van Richten's Guide. I think that stuff can make for incredible stories.
It's one of the reasons why I get so angry when bad-faith jerks try to use dark content as a shield for hateful content. Those two DO NOT COMPARE, they NEVER HAVE, and even the most basic understanding of how hate works should be enough to make that distinction. But I keep seeing the same damn argument over and over and over.
So yeah. That's why I wrote what I did. If that clarifies matters at all.
Looking at all of these threads, I think that had WotC included the 'reasonable person' standard, and allowed for correction of the offensive content and/or allowed the 3PP to contest their decisions in court if it became obvious they were just abusing their power many fewer people would have had an issue with the clause. Some still would, but then as you've pointed out before there will always be people who only want power and will argue in bad faith for their position on whichever side of an argument they are on.
I belong to one of the most marginalized, regionalized, and historically wronged populations on the planet. I'm no stranger to racial and cultural prejudice but I'm also no stranger to the mendacity of those whose moral framing of everything is more about their own egos and more in the service of something other than whatever they claim: usually some faction and not at all the population group in question.
I should hope you can appreciate the irony that you demonstrate precisely what I mean by this with your every attempt to undermine my apprehensiveness.
I've decades of experience engaging with people who talk incessantly about racism right before they start performing a little routine that shows they are among some of the most racist people I've encountered throughout my entire life.
So forgive me for just not taking your word for it than you're my divinely-appointed savior."
I'm not asking to be your "divinely appointed savior". I'm not trying to undermine your apprehension. My argument has always been that people's apprehension that Wizards will misuse a 'morality clause' (what an awful way to dismiss the entire idea) is blinding them to the fact that a complete lack of protection against hate can cause the exact same issues right now that they're arguing a "morality clause" will cause years down the line.
You can disagree with me, and clearly do. Fine. Disagree all you like. I don't appreciate you weaponizing your background to unfairly paint me as an outspoken hyper bigot. Please pardon me for saying it, but I don't give a shit what completely unrelated people I've never met and will never meet have done to prove their racism. I'm not them. Don't tar me with a brush I haven't earned. You joined the board literally today, you don't know who I am or what I stand for outside of the words I've spoken in this thread.
I'm not going to ask you about your background. That's not mine to seek, and it's not relevant to share anyways. I will ask you not to assume mine from here out.
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"Protections put in place to stop the spread of hate in our property could be co-opted at some foggy point in the far distant future by evil businessmen to curtail the rights and ideals of marginalized folk. Therefore we should have absolutely no protections whatsoever against the spread of hate in our property, thus allowing hate to spread freely and without hindrance - harming marginalized people right now - so that evil future businessmen can't harm marginalized people at some indeterminate point in the future."
Sure. That makes loads of sense. [/sarcasm]
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Except that none of you expressing this sentiment have been able to suggest a workable method for this clause.
"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?
Ah yes, another common argument that has no actual merit: “but how would this work?”
Easy. The same way every single other morality clause in licensing works. They’re quite common, and pretending like they’re a novel invention that hasn’t been solved for years is so laughable as to call into question the sincerity of your position.
They work pretty easily - the content owner holds the right to decide something is wrong, they get a period of time to say “we are terminating your license if you don’t fix it”, then the third party either complied or loses the license of sues the licensor for breach of contract and gets a court to decide.
This isn’t something novel or new - this kind of language has been around for decades.
So your best suggestion for this morality clause is: Let the big company with billions of dollars decide what's acceptable, and if you disagree you can try to get justice by suing the big company with billions of dollars.
Do you have a suggestion for who in the company will make these decisions?
"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?
Dude, you know full well that's not what they were asking about.
The problem is the company having Carte Blanche on the determination of what constitutes problematic content.
WOTC could look at a 3rd party book and state something along the lines of "This product doesn't have enough <fill in blank> representation and is therefore hateful/problematic/etc. We are terminating your license unless you fix it."
Why is it my job to come up with a framework for doing this? I'm an electronics technician, not a sensitivity consultant or a contract/IP lawyer or a public relations person or a marketing head or any of the other jobs out there better equipped to propose ideas. I'm the customer, not a product development person. My job is to say "I don't want hate in my D&D", and if I think Wizards has adequately met that goal I continue to offer my custom.
Stop demanding that I solve the problem myself in five minutes in the space of a single forum post when the actual solution is something every reasonable person knows would need to be hammered out through weeks or months of work from qualified professionals. I'm not going to give you a half-baked amateur proposal you can tear apart and say "see? This idea doesn't work, therefore there's no point in trying to protect D&D and its players from hate."
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My suggestion is to let the owner of speech exercise control over their own speech. And, if people don’t like that speech, they should feel free to publish whatever they want with their own speech - because that is all a morality clause does. It literally does nothing to limit a third party’s speech; it only limits a third party’s ability to use the underlying content creator’s speech.
As for who should actually do it? Wizards is contracting with a third party who will review all of their own content; it stands to reason that group could review third party content flagged for attention. Then Wizards would be holding the content to the same standards they hold themselves to (and it would have to be concerning enough that they’d want to pay a third party to conduct a review). But the actual “who” is irrelevant to the underlying right - Wizards’ right to control Wizards’ content.
There is an excellent play (which was also filmed multiple times) called "Inherit the Wind" that is poignant to this discussion.
In the play, a teacher (in 1925) is arrested and put on trial for teaching evolution in a small-town school. A lawyer defends him against a legal team led by a preacher. The play was written in the 1950s as a reponse to the Communist witch-hunts of Senator Joseph McCarthy.
The lessons of this play are worth considering. Here is a CliffsNotes page that has a great summary.
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/i/inherit-the-wind/critical-essays/themes-in-inherit-the-wind
Here are some important ideas from the book as summarized in the CliffsNotes article.
"During the early 1950s, known as the McCarthy era, actors and writers were blacklisted — that is, refused work because they had been accused of having some connection to Communism."
"During this period, people stopped expressing their thoughts, beliefs, or ideas, afraid they would lose their livelihood or worse. Being writers, Lawrence and Lee became aware of the dangerous situation created when laws are passed limiting the freedom to think and speak. When writing Inherit the Wind, the playwrights were not concerned with the controversy between evolution and creation, the focus of the Scopes trial. Instead, they were concerned with the censoring or limiting of an individual's freedom to think. The authors used the issue of evolution as a metaphor for control over an individual's thoughts or beliefs. Inherit the Wind, then, is Lawrence and Lee's response to the McCarthy era."
"In a society that honors freedom of thought, it is necessary to value beliefs that differ from one's own. Even though Drummond is referring to the evolutionist/fundamentalist conflict in Inherit the Wind, the issue of intolerance and lack of respect for differing beliefs and thoughts is evident during the McCarthy era as well. People's lives were ruined for even the slightest connection to Communism."
As for this:
That makes as assumption about whether or not the content of a 3PP's work is speech owned by WotC. I would argue it's not unless the 3PP used protected IP, and much of what was originally covered in OGL 1.0a was not protected IP. Of course, it means nothing until it's tested in court.
"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's up to you and how you license it. If you wanted to *revoke* someone's right to do this then Creative Commons and licenses in the spirit of "Open" (in the context of "Open Source") may not be what you want to use. More people reading your books is great and some authors feel that letting fans creating derivative work helps sales and are permissive but others very much don't much for the reasons you mention. As they said on Star Trek: DS9 "The problem with giving freedom of choice is that sometimes they make the wrong choice." If you're nervous about such a thing you probably want to reserve that right to yank stuff back. The bigger issue, IMO, is promising "I swear I'll never sue or legally threaten anyone who uses my work ever" and then doing so anyway because someone did something with your work that is very against your personal beliefs.
One other thing to note is that RPGs are different than other media like books and films. With RPGs the more people who are using a system the better it is for the creator of that system. Beyond just free advertising people buy core books (or THREE core books in the case of D&D for time immemorial). And there's no way any company can churn out the type of content that appeals to a wider audience. This is similar to the idea of open source software which is what inspired the OGL. Hence the idea of an open license for RPGs. And, it should be noted, this has worked out great for Wizards for the past two decades unless every analyst I've ever listened to or read has been totaly wrong (which I'm not removing the possibility of but I doubt).
I understand some people are vehemently against this clause and others defend it. I certainly have my opinions on it but in terms of 'open' in this context this kind of clause is drifting away from that definition. The idea for me, and others, is not that Wizards doesn't have the 'right' to constrict their IP (whether legal or morally), but is that such a clause 'open'? I'd say no. Some are willing to sacrifice some of the 'openess' of D&D in exchange for more control by Wizards and others aren't. There isn't an objective 'right' or 'wrong' answer even if there are strong opinions.
I'm pretty sure that wasn't actually Picard (which is what was so ironic in what he said) and, more to the point, he was criticising the Admiral for using her speech to vent her hate for Romulans and abused the privilege extended to her by the Federation in order to magnify her own speech to do so.
I'm not sure it's as clearly in favour of your point as you think.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Except, of course, this is not censorship. This is someone saying “you can borrow my car, you just can’t drive my car drunk. If you want to drive drunk, you can drive your own car.”
The “censorship” argument in licensing is and always has been an effective, but still basic argument. These clauses are not about censoring or controlling others’ speech - they are about controlling one’s own speech when others are using it.
I feel like you are misunderstanding me here entirely but I also get the feeling you don’t particularly want to talk about it.
So let me be clear here. I am anti hate.
One of my points was that a list is NOT possible. the fact you throw that a list is impossible in my face makes me think you did not read what I wrote at all. I have done no hand wringing whatsoever. I have done NOTHING malicious. Believe me I am anti hate. I have done plenty to deal with hate. Do not try to tarnish me with trying to be malicious.
if you want to understand why I said what I said, or if you want me to try and explain to get my point across in a way that actually matches my thoughts I will.
if you want to come across and accuse me of maliciously doing anything I really would hope you can point to something I’ve done.
And this is where we appear to disagree with you. I do not agree that the content created by a 3PP using the OGL and the SRD (as it was before being added to CC) would be the same as being WotC's speech.
"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?
You know, I've gotten this a number of times now. Multiple people have accused me of being a white supremacist because I'm arguing the case for more protection against hate rather than less, and I'm very confused as to why it keeps coming up. I'd like to know what, in my arguments, gives the impression that I'm all for suppressing the little guy?
I'm not going to claim to be 'innocent of bigotry' because I think Ophidimancer is right - exclusionism and bigotry are endemic weaknesses of the human mind, bred into us and reinforced by hundreds of years of society not giving a shit about it and building itself up around the idea. I'm no more immune to it than anyone else, and whatever my self-image is now I grew up a white straight male taken by most to be cisgender. Can't help it - that was the body I was born in and I can't change it any more than anyone else can, no matter how much I might wish to. I try and keep cognizant of that fact and listen when people who didn't grow up with such a convenient mask speak to me about their ills, but I'm starting to get angry as much as confused over why so many people are accusing me of being exactly the sort of person I've been arguing for days now deserves less of a platform in our game.
Ignorance, I'll cop to. I did not grow up/live in the same sort of privation others did and that means I'm blind to that experience and cannot speak to or for it. I was not aware that was what I was doing, and if asked I wouldn't have described myself as doing anything of the sort.
Being actively, deliberately hateful I will not cop to, and I'm getting mighty tired of people projecting it onto me and filling my PM box with all sorts of rather awful slurs.
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Racist / Hateful / Offensive works are self-limiting. People of good conscience will avoid them. Trying to censor people is a pointless endeavor and often has the opposite of the desired effect.
I'm concerned that it can and will be weaponized period. Specifically where the weapon is pointed isn't as important as the problem of creating it in the first place. And frankly I'm concerned that it would be used against me personally. That being said against marginalized people is both the worst possible and most likely target.
In my current dnd game, one of the pc's had the opportunity to negotiate with a goddess for a boon. He asked for a powerful magical weapon and was rebuked, then agreed with her after a bit of discussion. The question she had for him, in a much more long winded and elegant way is what happens after you die or someone takes this weapon from you somehow? It was particularly on point for this game because the primary problem the pc's are dealing with is a set of powerful magical swords which are causing extreme problems that nobody can destroy.
This problem applies in real life. Personally I don't believe Wotc as presently constituted can be trusted with this kind of weapon. Their track record is worse than the market in general of late. But even if I did believe the current owners and leadership of wotc could be trusted to use this weapon only for good, it is inconceivable that the company will not eventually be sold to or lead by someone less trustworthy. The example earlier in this thread of a sudi prince buying wotc is perfectly on point for the kind of danger this creates.
I can't even see why wotc needs the weapon in the first place. The only actual hateful work I have seen any discussion of is whatever abomination E Gagyx is trying to publish. People kept bringing it up in ogl threads till I want to tear my hair every time I see it again because he isn't even attempting to publish it under the OGL. So far not a single person in the various discussions on this site or reddit that I have read has discussed a single actual published hateful rpg work. The only prepublication work discussed is the Gagyx star frontiers remake. I would not be surprised if someone somewhere has actually published something hateful related to dnd in some way, the bar to self publication today is fairly low. The fact that even people who are riled up about the possibility of someone publishing hateful dnd material and arguing a dangerous weapon is needed to defend against it don't have any examples of it happening tells me that any such material is so obscure it might as well not exist. This is after over 20 years without a weapon to defend against it Why should we create something so dangerous now? Keep the dangerous magical swords fantasy objects only please.
I'll field this one. Even though 23 years of there not really being any sort of OGL-based restriction on bigoted content now folks are nervous we will get more of that content now that the SRD that it is in Creative Commons although there is 0 difference to the OGL in re objectional content. Meanwhile there's the possibility multi billion dollar company sensitive to social media trends HQed in a country which recenetly has included culture wars over, *checks notes*, M&M advertising mascot body images and XBox power saving options would start looking much more critically on inclusive LGBTQ content in a way a lot of members of the community may find objectionable.
Honestly I think the latter is more likely than the former but they're both unlikely. Either way some people are more willing to deal with the possibility of the latter (which would include community pressure) than the former (which would depend almost entirely on WOTC corporate and PR leadership) and vice versa.
Right.
First of all, apologies. I did not mean to target you the way you're telling me I did; my ability to write is curtailed when I'm on my phone as I was when I wrote that post. I should have probably waited until I had a proper monitor and keyboard.
Second of all: I quoted you because you laid out plainly an argument I've seen dozens and dozens and dozens of times, in varying levels of faith, from a multitude of people. Namely, the idea that books/adventures/modules/products which include hateful content as a theme but do so whilst villifying it and using the product as a means of exploring these themes and why they're heinous would be considered "Hateful" the same way as loathesome content. Tarred with the same brush and cast aside despite its validity. The question is always "how do we know this isn't hateful?"
My argument is that such questions don't just miss a key difference between 'Dark' content and loathesome content, they miss the key difference. People want a definition of hateful content? I gave one in the post I wrote back to you - content which deliberately seeks to normalize, glorify, or otherwise celebrate actions, attitudes and behaviors that any reasonable person** understands would lead to the harm, ostracization, or diminishment of a group or people based on factors and circumstances of lifestyle, birth, or rearing, or content that is so grossly negligent in its construction as to result in the same end.
The word "deliberately" is critical there. As is the "Any Reasonable Person" wording - that's not "whichever random yaybo". 'Any Reasonable Person' is a well-defined legal term/standard used in a lot of cases like this which fundamentally rely on subjective judgment. In short (and Caerwyn, if I have this wrong please let me know and correct me), 'Any Reasonable Person' is a standard that seeks to take into account the average opinion of an average citizen of the region in which the prospective offense took place, as understood through polling, news, and other means of gauging the collective opinion of an area. Regardless, that's the key differentiator. 'Dark' content, which utilizes horrible themes that are given their due gravity and diligence, does not seek to normalize or glorify such actions, attitudes, or behaviors. Even when the horrible themes are considered 'normal' within the world.
Everybody's favorite example is Athas, the world of Dark Sun, where slavery, cannibalism, tyranny, and general awfulness are all considered the average norm. Arguments against constraints on hate like to say that Athas/Dark Sun would not be possible in a D&D where hateful content was restricted. Here's the thing - Athas is not held up as a shining example of a splendid world we should all aspire to. Athas is portrayed as a burned, dying miserable hellscape and an absolutely horrible place to live. Athas/Dark Sun is not hateful content, it is dark content. Those two are not and have never been the same thing. Nor even all that close, to be honest. I love dark content, I'm all in on shit like Grim Hollow and Van Richten's Guide. I think that stuff can make for incredible stories.
It's one of the reasons why I get so angry when bad-faith jerks try to use dark content as a shield for hateful content. Those two DO NOT COMPARE, they NEVER HAVE, and even the most basic understanding of how hate works should be enough to make that distinction. But I keep seeing the same damn argument over and over and over.
So yeah. That's why I wrote what I did. If that clarifies matters at all.
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Looking at all of these threads, I think that had WotC included the 'reasonable person' standard, and allowed for correction of the offensive content and/or allowed the 3PP to contest their decisions in court if it became obvious they were just abusing their power many fewer people would have had an issue with the clause. Some still would, but then as you've pointed out before there will always be people who only want power and will argue in bad faith for their position on whichever side of an argument they are on.
I'm not asking to be your "divinely appointed savior". I'm not trying to undermine your apprehension. My argument has always been that people's apprehension that Wizards will misuse a 'morality clause' (what an awful way to dismiss the entire idea) is blinding them to the fact that a complete lack of protection against hate can cause the exact same issues right now that they're arguing a "morality clause" will cause years down the line.
You can disagree with me, and clearly do. Fine. Disagree all you like. I don't appreciate you weaponizing your background to unfairly paint me as an outspoken hyper bigot. Please pardon me for saying it, but I don't give a shit what completely unrelated people I've never met and will never meet have done to prove their racism. I'm not them. Don't tar me with a brush I haven't earned. You joined the board literally today, you don't know who I am or what I stand for outside of the words I've spoken in this thread.
I'm not going to ask you about your background. That's not mine to seek, and it's not relevant to share anyways. I will ask you not to assume mine from here out.
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