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Post by tdenmark on Jul 9, 2020 10:31:49 GMT -6
One of my favorite things that Wizards has done is making TSR's back catalog available in PDF and POD. Even for books I already own it is nice to have a good clean scan to keep on my tablet. Recently they've come under attack, so Wizards attached this statement to all of their legacy products. It is alarming that this could be the first step towards banning those old products. I wonder if it is possible to discuss this without getting too "political" (one of the policies I really appreciate about this forum). So I will start by saying, it is amazing that the top ten products are these:  Rules Cyclopedia, the only time an entire D&D rules set was put into a single hardcover tome is still #1. Seems like there's a lesson to be learned there. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2020 12:07:29 GMT -6
I "liked" this not because I approve of what's going on, but because this is an important discussion to have.
For my part, I feel like we *just* got all this great content back, and we risk losing it all over again.
I feel like the free market ought to be the only factor deciding if a piece of published work is available or not. It either sells or it doesn't. The one exception would be works that are directly calling for violence or oppression of particular real world groups. I can't think of very much fiction that does that, let alone RP games, though. There may be RPG authors with those views, but I've never personally seen or owned an RPG book that told me I ought to be committing genocide or marginalizing any groups. Whether or not certain fantasy elements in those books were thinly veiled analogues for authorial prejudice is another can of worms, and that's something people can vote for with their dollar.
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Post by tdenmark on Jul 9, 2020 13:04:45 GMT -6
We got the entire Looney Tunes collection on Blu-Ray and watched it with our kids.
When it came to Speedy Gonzalez (one of my favorite characters) there was a warning screen. We had the option of deciding whether or not to watch those cartoons, we did and enjoyed them. My step father is Mexican and he loved the Taco Bell dog. The one that was banned for whatever reasons. So I understand we live in extraordinarily sensitive times. I don't think censorship is the right answer and those who engage in it will be viewed in the future as favorably as the Satanic Panic of the 80's.
I'm surprised Oriental Adventures is #4, it is considered one of the worst offenders. I have a certain fondness for that book because of the campaigns we played with it back in high school. I think it's as accurate to the Orient as Lord of the Rings is to Medieval Europe, that is not very. It's a fantasy book.
And Star Frontiers in the top ten? Who loves that game? I was always kind of meh on it. Though I loved Elmore's art, I think he does Sci-Fi better than fantasy.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2020 13:23:59 GMT -6
If WoTC thinks these products are beyond the pale, it should either (1) remove the products from the market; or (2) sell the rights to these products to a buyer who is comfortable with their content. The stance WoTC is taking - "sure this content is offensive, but it ain't gonna keep us from cashing in" - is so bereft of principle that it is hard to defend regardless of what one thinks of the products themselves.
(For the record, I personally am entirely unmoved by the ostensible offensiveness of past products.)
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2020 13:57:07 GMT -6
Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say Ni at will to old ladies - Roger the Shrubber
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Post by hamurai on Jul 9, 2020 14:07:23 GMT -6
The world of books, films and games is full of stereotypes which can be offensive to some folks. Mature readers will recognize them and if you know enough about the author and the time of creation, you will know how to understand these and see them as a product of their time - which doesn't mean it's great now, just that we shouldn't see them as true. A simple note at the beginning of these products should be enough - a new foreword to make folks aware of the issue.
Personally, I'm a little tired of being from the "land which had the Nazis" and which mostly appears in RPGs and Tabletop games as the Nazi faction, but I'm not offended by it. Personally, I think it's funny that many people seem to think Germany is Oktoberfest spread out across the nation where all drink beer, eat sausage and sauerkraut and wear lederhosen. Those who are interested can get more info, others may stick to their stereotypes. It's easier and that's the reason stereotypes exist. It helps us humans to categorize, consciously and unconsciously.
But - again, personally, I think - that if you ban Oriental Adventures and the rest of those old stereotypical fantasy supplements, you can also ban Shakespeare and other classics for the same reasons, and that include 80s/90s karate films as well as many pseudo-historical movies.
You just cannot include all information on a culture in such a book. I think that should be clear to all readers, that's why I'd recommend a disclaimer at the beginning and then be done with it.
Would be a pity to lose all these works because of the (over-)sensitivity of some people.
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Post by Zenopus on Jul 9, 2020 14:08:29 GMT -6
I'm surprised Oriental Adventures is #4, it is considered one of the worst offenders. I have a certain fondness for that book because of the campaigns we played with it back in high school. I think it's as accurate to the Orient as Lord of the Rings is to Medieval Europe, that is not very. It's a fantasy book. It's almost certainly at #4 due to the recent discussion about it. Some are afraid it will be taken down so are buying it now, others want to read what is being talked about, etc. |
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Post by Zenopus on Jul 9, 2020 14:27:46 GMT -6
The mere possibility that WOTC can at any time take down all of the OOP PDFs & PODs emphasizes why the retroclones are important and remain relevant going forward.
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Post by tdenmark on Jul 9, 2020 17:26:59 GMT -6
If WoTC thinks these products are beyond the pale, it should either (1) remove the products from the market; or (2) sell the rights to these products to a buyer who is comfortable with their content. The stance WoTC is taking - "sure this content is offensive, but it ain't gonna keep us from cashing in" - is so bereft of principle that it is hard to defend regardless of what one thinks of the products themselves. I'd like to see what the size of the royalty check they get from DriveThru each month is. I bet it's a monster. |
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Post by derv on Jul 9, 2020 18:38:42 GMT -6
Personally, I think it's funny that many people seem to think Germany is Oktoberfest spread out across the nation where all drink beer, eat sausage and sauerkraut and wear lederhosen. Those who are interested can get more info, others may stick to their stereotypes. So...you don't like beer, strudel, and sauerkraut? Where I'm from if you don't eat pork and sauerkraut for New Years you risk being rotten for the rest of the year. I gleefully continue this tradition with my own children  |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2020 18:59:23 GMT -6
Here's to getting additional info. Imagine DM'ing a tavern having never been to one, for example.
Also beer, strudel, sausage, and sauerkraut ++!
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Post by asaki on Jul 9, 2020 19:44:58 GMT -6
I just wish they would release more old stuff...seems like they gave up after they tried outsourcing to the fans. I also wish they would release more stuff that was in print quality, not blurry JPGs =/ I did end up buying a tablet for PDFs, but it's still nice to be able to print out adventures so I can highlight and write in them (plus, it's super difficult to multi-task in Android). The old official scans that are floating around the 'Net are way higher quality. Not going to get into the other discussions because I'm pretty sure what I want to say isn't allowed here 
Where I'm from if you don't eat pork and sauerkraut for New Years you risk being rotten for the rest of the year. ...so are you trying to say it's all my fault that 2020 is turning out this way??  |
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Post by tdenmark on Jul 9, 2020 19:50:51 GMT -6
Personally, I'm a little tired of being from the "land which had the Nazis" and which mostly appears in RPGs and Tabletop games as the Nazi faction, but I'm not offended by it. It's because the Nazi's did it with such panache and iconic visuals. Stalin, Mao, Kim Il Sung, and Pol Pot regimes slaughtered far more people and oppressed many more for far longer and should really be remembered as the worst bad guys of all time. But, it seems we're stuck with people calling everyone they disagree with Nazis. For what it's worth when I think of Germany I think of the gorgeous hotties. My sergeant when I was stationed in Korea did a tour in Germany, and man oh man his German wife was fine. |
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Post by DungeonDevil on Jul 10, 2020 0:38:20 GMT -6
Is this what the young'uns are now calling Cancel Culture?
By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes...
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Post by hamurai on Jul 10, 2020 1:52:18 GMT -6
Personally, I think it's funny that many people seem to think Germany is Oktoberfest spread out across the nation where all drink beer, eat sausage and sauerkraut and wear lederhosen. Those who are interested can get more info, others may stick to their stereotypes. So...you don't like beer, strudel, and sauerkraut? Where I'm from if you don't eat pork and sauerkraut for New Years you risk being rotten for the rest of the year. I gleefully continue this tradition with my own children Actually, I love beer, sauerkraut, all forms of sausages  Our family would eat bratwurst and sauerkraut on New Years for the same reason.
My grandparents had a very small farm and we made the meat ourselves till around 1995. I'm used to eating most of what you cut from or out of a pig or a cow 
Also, I do own several lederhosen but I only wear them for celebrations, that includes Oktoberfest and similar beer "festivals" |
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Post by Finarvyn on Jul 10, 2020 5:36:59 GMT -6
[mod hat on]
Congrats for discussing a touchy topic in a civil manner, and not going political with it. So far I approve, and thank you!
[mod hat off]- - - - - - Interesting that all 10 of the top ten are older products, or is this an older-product-only list? As to the Rules Cyclopedia being #1, well I've said for a long time that if I could only keep one book of my RPG collection it would probably be the RC. It has classes, spells, monsters, campaign info, and so on. Pretty much everything one would need to run a campaign and for a decent edition, too. We live in such strange times. First a plague threatens to kill us all off, then riots and political stuff makes our country forget that there is this plague trying to kill us all off. Nobody is taking about C-19 any more. All of my newsfeed is either BLM or the what's up with the Kardashians. 
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Post by tdenmark on Jul 10, 2020 7:40:35 GMT -6
Interesting that all 10 of the top ten are older products, or is this an older-product-only list? We live in such strange times...what's up with the Kardashians. They don't really make their 5e stuff available on PDF or POD, except a few minor supplemental things. They leave that up to the fans on DM's guild to make stuff, which Wizard's gets a healthy percentage of the profits off of. Even though most of the 4e books are available it is interesting how almost NO 4e products can be found in even the top 100 (I didn't bother looking beyond that). The highest selling one is the 4e PHB and it stands at #85 as of right now. 4e appears to have been an even worse disaster than we thought. And...Kardashians? Really?! Yuck. I don't see how anyone can give a flying flock what those pretentious self-centered low-minded gutter trash people are up to. |
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Post by jeffb on Jul 10, 2020 8:36:23 GMT -6
I'm intentionally staying out of this discussion, because I cannot separate the politics from this series of events.
However, it is going to get much worse
This is culture war, folks- And we are in WOTC's sights.
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Post by geoffrey on Jul 10, 2020 9:22:46 GMT -6
It seems to be the fate of D&D books that some people will always want to ban them. While banning D&D books is inescapably ridiculous, it does lend an edge of "the forbidden" to the books, which is cool. Remember that The King in Yellow and The Necronomicon were also banned.  |
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Post by verhaden on Jul 10, 2020 9:27:21 GMT -6
[mod hat on]
Congrats for discussing a touchy topic in a civil manner, and not going political with it. So far I approve, and thank you!
[mod hat off] But it’s been charged from the start. I could respond to a number of one liners that have been posted in this thread, but I imagine it would only make things worse and end with a locked thread. |
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Post by jeffb on Jul 10, 2020 9:43:19 GMT -6
It seems to be the fate of D&D books that some people will always want to ban them. However it is now the people in charge of D&D, and the community they have groomed/built I don't see this ending well- Open content or not- the 3PP and OSR is going to be impacted by this. WOTC went after something they saw as "out of bounds" before- The Book of Erotic Fantasy, back in the D20 days. What is happening now is on several orders of magnitude greater scale. |
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Post by derv on Jul 10, 2020 15:03:04 GMT -6
...so are you trying to say it's all my fault that 2020 is turning out this way?? Well, if you didn't eat your sauerkraut....what can I say. |
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Post by tdenmark on Jul 10, 2020 15:19:48 GMT -6
However it is now the people in charge of D&D, and the community they have groomed/built I don't see this ending well- Open content or not- the 3PP and OSR is going to be impacted by this. WOTC went after something they saw as "out of bounds" before- The Book of Erotic Fantasy, back in the D20 days. What is happening now is on several orders of magnitude greater scale. I don't think the OGL can be revoked, but they will be able to vigorously defend their newer editions and be able to claim that some OSR products infringe on that somehow. |
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Post by tdenmark on Jul 10, 2020 15:21:33 GMT -6
But it’s been charged from the start. I could respond to a number of one liners that have been posted in this thread, but I imagine it would only make things worse and end with a locked thread. I was very hesitant about starting this post, but felt it was an important discussion, and I've been impressed with the quality of the comments and avoidance of partisanship. |
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Post by geoffrey on Jul 10, 2020 15:34:59 GMT -6
It seems to be the fate of D&D books that some people will always want to ban them. However it is now the people in charge of D&D, and the community they have groomed/built Oddly enough, thirty years ago it was TSR itself (i. e., James Ward's "Angry Mothers from Heck" article in Dragon magazine #154) that tried to purge demons, devils, assassins, nude art, etc. from AD&D. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Fortunately, I think the book banners have an impossible task on their hands. Were WotC to make the self-destructive decision to stop selling PDFs of the good old stuff, those PDFs would still be available through other channels. "Can't stop the signal, Mal." The perennial passion to ban and/or destroy art (whether prose, poetry, painting, sculpture, song, etc.) does indeed leave one baffled. Whenever I read of such wanton destruction in history, I invariably react with sadness for the loss of the art and with bewilderment that anyone could be so thoughtless as to seek to ban/destroy art. Of course, those who ban/destroy books cannot be bothered to read books. |
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Post by verhaden on Jul 10, 2020 17:20:11 GMT -6
All I'll say is that it's been revealed that WotC has a pretty appalling internal business culture -- both with respect to M:tG and D&D. I hope they seriously work to improve, not because I rely on them for content (I find that they're increasinly irrelevant in that respect), but because they're the 1,000 lb. elephant in the room and they influence the hobby as a whole.
I don't find these statments alarming, and I think it's a slippery slope to argue this will lead to products getting banned. I think they serve as a recognition that there are very probleamtic elements of D&D's history. The "free market" isn't a magical cure all, and I would seriously worry about any society that determined a product's accessibility based only on sales -- especially as it relates to arts and literature. Books can be problematic in their depictions of race without calling for direct or overt violence and oopression. Content like that (e.g., the Turner Diaries) is easy to spot and root out. But subtle dehumanization of "the other" can lead to unconscious bias. Mature readers may be able to recognize these elements on their own, but warnings, notes, and forwards make readers better able to recognize and address these biases. That's important and we shouldn't ignore it because it makes us uncomfortable or changes the way we approach our favorite hobby/sports team/etc.
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Post by asaki on Jul 10, 2020 18:03:59 GMT -6
All I'll say is that it's been revealed that WotC has a pretty appalling internal business culture... Yeah, that's what I've been dancing around, but I'm not sure we're allowed to talk about it. |
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Post by Vile Traveller on Jul 10, 2020 19:43:35 GMT -6
I am not going to get into details of what should or should not be withdrawn, because I hold the somewhat radical view that nothing should ever be made unavailable. Well, it's not that radical amongst academics. I live in a place (for a few more months, at least) where certain songs have recently been banned, and schools were told this week that they must vet their libraries and reading lists for 'sensitive' materials. I'm getting out before that extends to universities. The solution is educating the public in critical thinking above all else, not abrogating the responsibility to authorities who are no less fallible than anyone else. Everyone should have the right to make their own decisions, they simply need to be shown how to make those decisions based on evidence instead of internet memes. We can only grow if we learn from our mistakes, not if we erase them. You'd be surprised how quickly we can slip into authoritarianism if we are not constantly and vigorously vigilant. I certainly was. And as usual, I applaud the members' restraint and civility in discussing this matter! |
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Post by captainjapan on Jul 11, 2020 3:42:57 GMT -6
I'm confused why Wizards of the Coast is bothering to respond to criticism of the "legacy" product, at all. Does WOTC shoulder any of the cost of hosting or distributing their content with DM's Guild? If not, then they must see some of the highest net profits from releasing the out-of-print stuff. From a purely financial perspective, why rock the boat? I'm generally skeptical of "corporate values" other than that of increasing the value of corporate shares. Wizards of the Coast has already done their own cost/ benefit analyses. It will be interesting to see whether or not they follow through in removing the offending titles. If they do, it would have to mean that they expect to displace the grognards for newer, more ethnically diverse purchasers. Outside of the 2000 WOTC market research survey, I've never seen a breakdown of the demographics of Dungeons & Dragons customers. Any information on minority participation rates would be anecdotal, at best. I'll assume the obvious,that the average D&D player is still overwhelmingly young, white, and male. Maybe not as male, anymore. The gains in female participation have been super promising. In which case, the old sexism should have been exorcised from the back catalog, long before now, if WOTC were really being serious about their mission. If Oriental Adventures is ever removed from the store, we'll get it somewhere else. It would take little effort. In the meantime, it's critics will gain social media exposure for their own, more authentic, "oriental" adventures. (They are, overwhelmingly, content creators, themselves.) And, Wizards of the Coast will continue to do what's good for Wizards of the Coast. |
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Parzival
Level 6 Magician
Is a little Stir Crazy this year...
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Post by Parzival on Jul 11, 2020 17:02:57 GMT -6
This Psychology Today article on the related claims that orcs in fantasy are examples of racism is extremely relevant to this discussion: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/checkpoints/202004/no-orcs-arent-racist?fbclid=IwAR3cy-4kTs7ZHTDL9PMmy4tareZsUdimKocz7NfkpoRTK1zCJrVM1in58JQ If you need a summary, the answer is: No, having evil orcs is not racist. By direct extension of his argument, neither is OA or any other of TSR’s works. My view is this: If a change will actually boost someone’s prospects in life and actually protect them from abuse by others, the change is worth considering, and may indeed be necessary. But if it’s just for show, it’s actually of more harm than it is help. “Where it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.”— Lucius Cary, 2nd Earl of Falkland Which is high falutin’ stuff for a D&D site! |
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Our family would eat bratwurst and sauerkraut on New Years for the same reason.
