D&D rules are and have always been guidelines to facilitate telling your story. If there is hateful content in your game than your DM or players put it there. If there is anti-trans in your game than again your DM or players put it there. If you don't agree with how your DM is telling his story then get a new DM. As a DM of over 30 years if i have a problem player then he is asked to change or leave. No one should be forced to play in a game they are uncomfortable in but that is on you and not D&D's ruleset to fix.
I used his and he pronouns here but feel free to replace with your preferred ones.
Stopping hate isn't just about playing with uncomfortable aspects in your game. What the changes to the Open Game License will hopefully be are clauses that prevent people from having to read about aspects that they feel uncomfortable with without warnings, and to prohibit all content that makes light of real life issues or is geared more towards being harmful than actually being a roleplaying game.
According to your logic, someone should be allowed to make a D&D product about how genocide is awesome, because you don't have to use it. This notion ignores the fact that reading intentionally problematic content can be just as bad, if not worse, as dealing with it in game.
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BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explainHERE.
WotC and such don't care if you put in hateful content in your homegame. They care if it's in published materials which carry their logo or badge or really any assosciation with them. Nobody is spying on your home game, but WotC has a responsibility to not allow their IP be tarnished by what 3rd parties publish.
It also does not address the liability for a company, organization, or IP that allows association with hateful content and individuals. That liability (not necessarily legal but certainly in the court of public opinion) is why so many IP owners are very very controlling of how that IP is used. the fact that the 1.0a hadn’t been used in this way is frankly a miracle, and in todays hyper polarized and reactionary environment the chances of this happening are only ever going to be higher.
this has been an issue across multiple markets, from fashion (adidas partnership with Kanye) to entertainment (Disney Pixar and John Lassiter, Rick and Morty and Justin Roiland, etc)
Ok then I need further explanation then. Am I to believe that if a 3rd party releases something offensive that I am then to blame WoTC for that and not the 3rd party? I do believe that some topics should be off limits but to have the audacity to think that WoTC would be to blame for it is just not right. I someone hits me with a car I blame the driver not the car manufacturer. Am i missing something?
If you get hit by a drunk driver plenty of people go after the bartender who overserved you.
Besides that, not everyone knows the difference between WotC and 3rd party publishers. Some mom buys a book for her kid and its all offensive biased crap there's a good chance she just knows it is D&D and never thinks further than that.
If you get hit by a drunk driver plenty of people go after the bartender who overserved you.
Besides that, not everyone knows the difference between WotC and 3rd party publishers. Some mom buys a book for her kid and its all offensive biased crap there's a good chance she just knows it is D&D and never thinks further than that.
ah ok now that makes sense thanks. I guess I'm of a different breed and strongly believe in personal responsibility. I'm not quick to judge but now I can see how many people are or just can't be bother to figure out who is responsible. Thanks for clearing that up. Now I understand the change to that aspect of the OGL.
The first gay that i knew came out to our Dnd group a couple weeks before he came out at school. This was back in '93. None of us in the Dnd Group had a problem with it, but once parents and politicians caught wind of it, there started to be questions about bathrooms and changing for Gym. In the end he just up and disappeared over Christmas break Like, we had a game scheduled on Boxing day and he never showed up. When we tried to call his house (see 1993), we got a line disconnected message. If by any chance Alan happens to read this I would be so happy to know you have survived and would love to pass it on to our fellow players and GM.
All that said, if WotC was morality police in 1993 they likely would have kicked our friend to the curb to. This is why we can't rely on a corporation as an arbiter of morality.
The prohibition in 1.2 does not prohibit people from making hateful content; it does not prohibit individuals from making bigoted publications. All it does is prohibit folks from using Wizards' intellectual property in their bigoted content.
To use your car analogy, Wizards is basically saying "you can drive our car, but you cannot hit anyone with the car. And, if you have a history of hitting people with vehicles, we are not going to let you use our car." That's all. The bad driver is free to go borrow someone else's car; they are free to buy their own car. Wizards does not--and cannot--control those behaviors. They can, however, control their own speech--and that means they can decide who they license their property to.
And, yes, if Wizards lends someone a car and that person uses Wizards' car to hurt others, Wizards is going to take some flack for that. They, after all, let someone borrow the keys without placing any ground rules or any restrictions on the usage of their vehicle.
The prohibition in 1.2 does not prohibit people from making hateful content; it does not prohibit individuals from making bigoted publications. All it does is prohibit folks from using Wizards' intellectual property in their bigoted content.
To use your car analogy, Wizards is basically saying "you can drive our car, but you cannot hit anyone with the car. And, if you have a history of hitting people with vehicles, we are not going to let you use our car." That's all. The bad driver is free to go borrow someone else's car; they are free to buy their own car. Wizards does not--and cannot--control those behaviors. They can, however, control their own speech--and that means they can decide who they license their property to.
And, yes, if Wizards lends someone a car and that person uses Wizards' car to hurt others, Wizards is going to take some flack for that. They, after all, let someone borrow the keys without placing any ground rules or any restrictions on the usage of their vehicle.
nice that car analogy is spot on now that i understand why the changes were needed.
If you get hit by a drunk driver plenty of people go after the bartender who overserved you.
Besides that, not everyone knows the difference between WotC and 3rd party publishers. Some mom buys a book for her kid and its all offensive biased crap there's a good chance she just knows it is D&D and never thinks further than that.
ah ok now that makes sense thanks. I guess I'm of a different breed and strongly believe in personal responsibility. I'm not quick to judge but now I can see how many people are or just can't be bother to figure out who is responsible. Thanks for clearing that up. Now I understand the change to that aspect of the OGL.
yeah its pretty much "hey if someone sees dnd compatible on that game, and its got racist shit like : "x race is just always smarter then y race, just cuz their better" they are probably gonna generalize. all it takes is one bad article to get others rolling and **** us. lets try to prevent that"
The prohibition in 1.2 does not prohibit people from making hateful content; it does not prohibit individuals from making bigoted publications. All it does is prohibit folks from using Wizards' intellectual property in their bigoted content.
To use your car analogy, Wizards is basically saying "you can drive our car, but you cannot hit anyone with the car. And, if you have a history of hitting people with vehicles, we are not going to let you use our car." That's all. The bad driver is free to go borrow someone else's car; they are free to buy their own car. Wizards does not--and cannot--control those behaviors. They can, however, control their own speech--and that means they can decide who they license their property to.
And, yes, if Wizards lends someone a car and that person uses Wizards' car to hurt others, Wizards is going to take some flack for that. They, after all, let someone borrow the keys without placing any ground rules or any restrictions on the usage of their vehicle.
Define WotC intellectual property for me in your opinion and let's discuss this.
Ya know despite being an open minded person, this annoying "Crusade" on supposedly hateful content, is starting to make me dislike certain groups of people simply cause they are the cause of all this annoying BS... I just want to enjoy my game of rolling plastic clackedy clacks, im fine with orcs being a evil dumb warlike race , im fine with drow being predominantly evil enslavers with some exceptions, not for a single moment did i consider the original hadoze background bad, all i thougt at that moment was neat a race that broke free of its shackles similar to many others like gythyanki and duergar.... yet for some bloody reason all of this is now problematic despite it being a blasted fantasy world... the only content id find truly hatefull would calling for the murder or real life people of color(yes that includes white people) or lgtv people just because of who they are or who they like, as for 1.2 the clause against hatefull contest is there just to give wotc more control
Ya know despite being an open minded person, this annoying "Crusade" on supposedly hateful content, is starting to make me dislike certain groups of people simply cause they are the cause of all this annoying BS... I just want to enjoy my game of rolling plastic clackedy clacks, im fine with orcs being a evil dumb warlike race , im fine with drow being predominantly evil enslavers with some exceptions, not for a single moment did i consider the original hadoze background bad, all i thougt at that moment was neat a race that broke free of its shackles similar to many others like gythyanki and duergar.... yet for some bloody reason all of this is now problematic despite it being a blasted fantasy world... the only content id find truly hatefull would calling for the murder or real life people of color(yes that includes white people) or lgtv people just because of who they are or who they like, as for 1.2 the clause against hatefull contest is there just to give wotc more control
And all POC and people from the LGBTQI+ community want to be able to enjoy the game as well. And their allies.
Just because you didn't consider something doesn't mean it's not there. It probably just means that it's outside of your life experience. Which is great for you, but it's not for everyone. I see WOTC (and I'm not talking about the OGL here, I'm talking about the general game evolution in recent years) as making genuine efforts to make the game more inclusive. Their motives could be any number of things, but that doesn't change that D&D has become a better game for some parts of society. And remember, we're just talking about published material. What you do at your table is your own business.
Ya know despite being an open minded person, this annoying "Crusade" on supposedly hateful content, is starting to make me dislike certain groups of people simply cause they are the cause of all this annoying BS... I just want to enjoy my game of rolling plastic clackedy clacks, im fine with orcs being a evil dumb warlike race , im fine with drow being predominantly evil enslavers with some exceptions, not for a single moment did i consider the original hadoze background bad, all i thougt at that moment was neat a race that broke free of its shackles similar to many others like gythyanki and duergar.... yet for some bloody reason all of this is now problematic despite it being a blasted fantasy world... the only content id find truly hatefull would calling for the murder or real life people of color(yes that includes white people) or lgtv people just because of who they are or who they like
Right? I mean, well done real world problems can be placed in an RPG and actually encourage discussion on that topic. I remember a game I played where Drow on the surface were enslaved by the local community. Until the one of my fellow player's Drow (slave of another player) helped to save the town from a goblin invasion. So for our award for saving the town, our party requested the emancipation of all Drow in town as our reward.
The word "Barbarian" began life as a hideously anti-indigenous slur by the ancient Greeks against non-Greeks. (As far as they were concerned, all non-Greeks sounded like "bar bar bar bar bar" when they talked. Modern racists have similar syllable strings for the Far East, the Middle East, and more.) It hasn't exactly shifted in meaning much, especially considering all uses of the word outside of TTRPGs, and the persisting meaning of related words such as 'barbarism" and "barbaric". Besides that, the word "Berserker" works better in literally every way. (I checked. It's from the culture that actually had them - the Norse - and the word itself refers to them being "bare warriors" (unarmored), and could also refer to being a "bear warrior", establishing the primal connection. There's literally no reason not to use the word Berserker for that class.)
What I mean is that while "Barbarian" is still in use in the game, I call BS on any claim of wanting to avoid hateful language. Most slurs, profanities, and vulgarities started out as benign words that got twisted over the years. "Barbarian" can't even say that - it was racist from the start. The change from "race" to "species" is hollow virtue signaling if they're not willing to eliminate another word that has always been far worse.
"Barbarian" history source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/barbarian [and others. Some speculate that the word was less pejorative at the start, but unlike its racist uses, there's not a source I could find for that.]
The word "Barbarian" began life as a hideously anti-indigenous slur by the ancient Greeks against non-Greeks. (As far as they were concerned, all non-Greeks sounded like "bar bar bar bar bar" when they talked. Modern racists have similar syllable strings for the Far East, the Middle East, and more.) It hasn't exactly shifted in meaning much, especially considering all uses of the word outside of TTRPGs, and the persisting meaning of related words such as 'barbarism" and "barbaric". Besides that, the word "Berserker" works better in literally every way. (I checked. It's from the culture that actually had them - the Norse - and the word itself refers to them being "bare warriors" (unarmored), and could also refer to being a "bear warrior", establishing the primal connection. There's literally no reason not to use the word Berserker for that class.)
What I mean is that while "Barbarian" is still in use in the game, I call BS on any claim of wanting to avoid hateful language. Most slurs, profanities, and vulgarities started out as benign words that got twisted over the years. "Barbarian" can't even say that - it was racist from the start. The change from "race" to "species" is hollow virtue signaling if they're not willing to eliminate another word that has always been far worse.
"Barbarian" history source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/barbarian [and others. Some speculate that the word was less pejorative at the start, but unlike its racist uses, there's not a source I could find for that.]
You deserve a gold star for all the thing I was thinking but have been struggling to put into the words of a post for hours. Edit:Typos
And all POC and people from the LGBTQI+ community want to be able to enjoy the game as well. And their allies.
And they're welcome to, always have been. Nothing stopping them, and nothing needing to change for that to be the case. If they're perceiving obstacles to playing then it sounds like they're the ones bringing that to the table.
Yes, they're bringing their real-world obstacles to the game. They're bringing the prejudice they've experienced and are seeing it mirrored in a fantasy setting. They're seeing their lack of representation in the real-world and finding it mirrored in a fantasy setting. And yeah, they're bringing their real-world condemnation and seeing it mirrored in a fantasy setting.
I don't get how people are so upset by the idea that there might be gay or trans characters in D&D or that we remove inherently evil races (or species). It doesn't mean you can't have an evil Orc tribe, just like you can have an evil Human tribe or an evil fairy tribe. They're just no longer saying all Goblins are evil. And if you don't like that, you can change it at your table. So not much is changing for how you play the game, they're just changing what's published. Why is that so upsetting to people?
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D&D rules are and have always been guidelines to facilitate telling your story. If there is hateful content in your game than your DM or players put it there. If there is anti-trans in your game than again your DM or players put it there. If you don't agree with how your DM is telling his story then get a new DM. As a DM of over 30 years if i have a problem player then he is asked to change or leave. No one should be forced to play in a game they are uncomfortable in but that is on you and not D&D's ruleset to fix.
I used his and he pronouns here but feel free to replace with your preferred ones.
Stopping hate isn't just about playing with uncomfortable aspects in your game. What the changes to the Open Game License will hopefully be are clauses that prevent people from having to read about aspects that they feel uncomfortable with without warnings, and to prohibit all content that makes light of real life issues or is geared more towards being harmful than actually being a roleplaying game.
According to your logic, someone should be allowed to make a D&D product about how genocide is awesome, because you don't have to use it. This notion ignores the fact that reading intentionally problematic content can be just as bad, if not worse, as dealing with it in game.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.WotC and such don't care if you put in hateful content in your homegame. They care if it's in published materials which carry their logo or badge or really any assosciation with them. Nobody is spying on your home game, but WotC has a responsibility to not allow their IP be tarnished by what 3rd parties publish.
It also does not address the liability for a company, organization, or IP that allows association with hateful content and individuals. That liability (not necessarily legal but certainly in the court of public opinion) is why so many IP owners are very very controlling of how that IP is used. the fact that the 1.0a hadn’t been used in this way is frankly a miracle, and in todays hyper polarized and reactionary environment the chances of this happening are only ever going to be higher.
this has been an issue across multiple markets, from fashion (adidas partnership with Kanye) to entertainment (Disney Pixar and John Lassiter, Rick and Morty and Justin Roiland, etc)
Ok then I need further explanation then. Am I to believe that if a 3rd party releases something offensive that I am then to blame WoTC for that and not the 3rd party? I do believe that some topics should be off limits but to have the audacity to think that WoTC would be to blame for it is just not right. I someone hits me with a car I blame the driver not the car manufacturer. Am i missing something?
If you get hit by a drunk driver plenty of people go after the bartender who overserved you.
Besides that, not everyone knows the difference between WotC and 3rd party publishers. Some mom buys a book for her kid and its all offensive biased crap there's a good chance she just knows it is D&D and never thinks further than that.
A) No, they aren't to blame. That being said, it looks bad when content with their trademark (the Creator Badge) on it is hateful and discriminatory.
B) More importantly, when people release third party content that is hateful, it harms others and causes them real emotional injury.
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
Ever wanted to talk about your parties' worst mistakes? Do so HERE. What's your favorite class, why? Share & explain
HERE.ah ok now that makes sense thanks. I guess I'm of a different breed and strongly believe in personal responsibility. I'm not quick to judge but now I can see how many people are or just can't be bother to figure out who is responsible. Thanks for clearing that up. Now I understand the change to that aspect of the OGL.
The first gay that i knew came out to our Dnd group a couple weeks before he came out at school. This was back in '93. None of us in the Dnd Group had a problem with it, but once parents and politicians caught wind of it, there started to be questions about bathrooms and changing for Gym. In the end he just up and disappeared over Christmas break Like, we had a game scheduled on Boxing day and he never showed up. When we tried to call his house (see 1993), we got a line disconnected message.
If by any chance Alan happens to read this I would be so happy to know you have survived and would love to pass it on to our fellow players and GM.
All that said, if WotC was morality police in 1993 they likely would have kicked our friend to the curb to. This is why we can't rely on a corporation as an arbiter of morality.
Thanks Kaemgen cleared it up for me. It's like the old satanic panic of the 80's that i was unlucky enough to have played through
The prohibition in 1.2 does not prohibit people from making hateful content; it does not prohibit individuals from making bigoted publications. All it does is prohibit folks from using Wizards' intellectual property in their bigoted content.
To use your car analogy, Wizards is basically saying "you can drive our car, but you cannot hit anyone with the car. And, if you have a history of hitting people with vehicles, we are not going to let you use our car." That's all. The bad driver is free to go borrow someone else's car; they are free to buy their own car. Wizards does not--and cannot--control those behaviors. They can, however, control their own speech--and that means they can decide who they license their property to.
And, yes, if Wizards lends someone a car and that person uses Wizards' car to hurt others, Wizards is going to take some flack for that. They, after all, let someone borrow the keys without placing any ground rules or any restrictions on the usage of their vehicle.
nice that car analogy is spot on now that i understand why the changes were needed.
yeah its pretty much "hey if someone sees dnd compatible on that game, and its got racist shit like : "x race is just always smarter then y race, just cuz their better" they are probably gonna generalize. all it takes is one bad article to get others rolling and **** us. lets try to prevent that"
Define WotC intellectual property for me in your opinion and let's discuss this.
Ya know despite being an open minded person, this annoying "Crusade" on supposedly hateful content, is starting to make me dislike certain groups of people simply cause they are the cause of all this annoying BS... I just want to enjoy my game of rolling plastic clackedy clacks, im fine with orcs being a evil dumb warlike race , im fine with drow being predominantly evil enslavers with some exceptions, not for a single moment did i consider the original hadoze background bad, all i thougt at that moment was neat a race that broke free of its shackles similar to many others like gythyanki and duergar.... yet for some bloody reason all of this is now problematic despite it being a blasted fantasy world... the only content id find truly hatefull would calling for the murder or real life people of color(yes that includes white people) or lgtv people just because of who they are or who they like, as for 1.2 the clause against hatefull contest is there just to give wotc more control
And all POC and people from the LGBTQI+ community want to be able to enjoy the game as well. And their allies.
Just because you didn't consider something doesn't mean it's not there. It probably just means that it's outside of your life experience. Which is great for you, but it's not for everyone. I see WOTC (and I'm not talking about the OGL here, I'm talking about the general game evolution in recent years) as making genuine efforts to make the game more inclusive. Their motives could be any number of things, but that doesn't change that D&D has become a better game for some parts of society. And remember, we're just talking about published material. What you do at your table is your own business.
Right? I mean, well done real world problems can be placed in an RPG and actually encourage discussion on that topic. I remember a game I played where Drow on the surface were enslaved by the local community. Until the one of my fellow player's Drow (slave of another player) helped to save the town from a goblin invasion. So for our award for saving the town, our party requested the emancipation of all Drow in town as our reward.
The word "Barbarian" began life as a hideously anti-indigenous slur by the ancient Greeks against non-Greeks. (As far as they were concerned, all non-Greeks sounded like "bar bar bar bar bar" when they talked. Modern racists have similar syllable strings for the Far East, the Middle East, and more.) It hasn't exactly shifted in meaning much, especially considering all uses of the word outside of TTRPGs, and the persisting meaning of related words such as 'barbarism" and "barbaric". Besides that, the word "Berserker" works better in literally every way. (I checked. It's from the culture that actually had them - the Norse - and the word itself refers to them being "bare warriors" (unarmored), and could also refer to being a "bear warrior", establishing the primal connection. There's literally no reason not to use the word Berserker for that class.)
What I mean is that while "Barbarian" is still in use in the game, I call BS on any claim of wanting to avoid hateful language. Most slurs, profanities, and vulgarities started out as benign words that got twisted over the years. "Barbarian" can't even say that - it was racist from the start. The change from "race" to "species" is hollow virtue signaling if they're not willing to eliminate another word that has always been far worse.
"Barbarian" history source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/barbarian [and others. Some speculate that the word was less pejorative at the start, but unlike its racist uses, there's not a source I could find for that.]
You deserve a gold star for all the thing I was thinking but have been struggling to put into the words of a post for hours.
Edit:Typos
Yes, they're bringing their real-world obstacles to the game. They're bringing the prejudice they've experienced and are seeing it mirrored in a fantasy setting. They're seeing their lack of representation in the real-world and finding it mirrored in a fantasy setting. And yeah, they're bringing their real-world condemnation and seeing it mirrored in a fantasy setting.
I don't get how people are so upset by the idea that there might be gay or trans characters in D&D or that we remove inherently evil races (or species). It doesn't mean you can't have an evil Orc tribe, just like you can have an evil Human tribe or an evil fairy tribe. They're just no longer saying all Goblins are evil. And if you don't like that, you can change it at your table. So not much is changing for how you play the game, they're just changing what's published. Why is that so upsetting to people?