Wizards of the Coast, publishers of Dungeons & Dragons, is suing another company that is resurrecting an old TSR (original publisher of D&D) title, Star Frontiers. They say the the game besmirches their reputation because it gets a bit racist. Maybe a lot racist. I could argue that a lot of fantasy tropes are rooted in dividing people into imaginary races, so maybe the company in the glass house shouldn’t be throwing stones like that.
Except… excerpts from the game do sound hella racist.
That last bit is painful to read.
Think about your race carefully as some races are more superior in power etc., some races have latent issues, similar to blacks having issues with sickle cell enemia [sic] and family issues. Remember racism is bad, do don’t do racial things like racism. Have fun with it but remember some races are just sometimes superior in some ways.
Wizards of the Coast might have a case. The new TSR seems to be blatantly un-self aware, and they seem to be saying the quiet part out loud, naming their strong dumb race “negro” rather than hiding their stereotypes behind names like “orc”.
They’re also eager to cater to the transphobes, asking if any of their testers would like a trans “race”.
But remember racism is bad, don’t do a racism.
It’s racist AND badly written to boot, with “anemia” misspelled and inexcusably bad grammar (“superior than?” Really?). Did these twits even finish high school? I was writing better (and less racist) stuff in JUNIOR high school!
Pure garden variety racism.
Ignorant and wrong.
One of the most common genetic diseases in the USA, generally fatal in early to mid life is cystic fibrosis.
It is most common in northern Europeans. These genetic disease ridden people are most of who reads this blog, including me. (This is sarcasm.) Cystic fibrosis is least common in Blacks.
Both sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis are what geneticists call, the “genetic load” of a population. That is the number of deleterious mostly recessive genes a population carries.
The genetic load of various populations are all about the same!!! The details differ.
The average human carries 1 to 2 recessive lethals, which is why you shouldn’t have children with close relatives.
A religion that shall remain nameless had a prophet that married a cousin (as well as made a follower divorce his wife so he could marry her).
The region of Sweden I live in has more than its share of hereditary diseases. People did not travel far in a sparsely inhabited county, so deleterious mutations tend to show up.
And we are as goddamn aryan as you can get.
A minor point:
Anyway, a dark skin does not imply kinship. The capoid peoples are not at all related to other african peoples.
A game could have had a race with dark skin blond hair and almond-shaped eyes. Modelling a people after Africans is lazy.
So far as I can figure, WotC allowed the trademark on TSR to expire, so some guy in N.C. took it up to publish old TSR material, but “updated” it to be more explicitly racist. Is that the gist of it?
@1:
Ah, that’s a minor misspelling of superier. Don’t we all know it’s supery, superier, superiest.
Esprit de l’escalier: miner.
The least I can say for Tolkein and CS Lewis is that they had more than two races in their stories. All these morans could manage is “Darkest Africa” vs. “Whitest Europe.”
Russia is making an effort to be “orchiest Orchland” right now.
ionopachys @ 4
“some guy in N.C. took it up to publish old TSR material”
Sort of. Though, as I understand it, the some guy was Ernie Gygax (who is one of the sons of Gary Gygax, co-creator of the original D&D). The two lead “writers” are Justin LaNasa (a tattooist, weapon designer, and briefly a politician who refered to himself as Sir Justin LaNasa) and Dave Johnson (who, if memory serves, had all his stuff delisted from Druvethrurpg for…er…basically being a Nazi).
“but “updated” it to be more explicitly racist”
Not just racist – their bigotry contains multitudes. Tedious, tiresome, predictable, multitudes…
From what I’ve spotted reading up on it, another guy entirely managed to revive the TSR name and that guy was using it for something, but then let it lapse and LaNasa’s group jumped in and registered it while it was open. Ernie Gygax is a pretty notoriously racist and transphobic, which on one hand makes sense because his dad was too, though not as radicalised, but Luke Gygax (Gary’s other son who is more involved with the community and loved) somehow seems to have come out ok.
Also don’t forget LaNasa’s attempt to become a politician was “torpedoed by, among other things, reports that he once asked several female employees to wrestle in a tub filled with warm grits.”
Reminds me of the recent controversy in the Battletech community when one of the major writers got himself fired and tried to claim Catalyst Game Labs had gone ‘woke’ because they distanced themselves from him posting racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, election denying and pro-second civil war posts on his twitter.
Yes, please create a race called “Transbots”. Then Hasbro can sue you dipshidiots into oblivion.
Being an old school tabletop gamer whose first RPG was the original Star Frontiers, I’ve been following this story with a mix of fascination as disgust. Here’s a timeline of the the entire shitshow so far. The story just gets more and more weird and horrible. as you dig deeper and deeper.
For instance, the guy who is writing this abomination, Dave Johnson, is a bona fide Nazi with a history of posting fascist and racist comments and memes on social media. (Content warning for the link.) The game itself has absolutely NO connection to the original Star Frontiers and just appears to be a 5e rip-off that’s trying camp on an OOP property and make money on nostalgia for classic TSR titles. Fortunately, virtually no one in the larger Old school gaming community seems to be falling for LaNasa’s Trumpian antics. I expect the WotC suit will squash this den of vipers for good.
Doesn’t sickle cell anaemia provide protection against malaria?
Not difficult to see why it might be prevalent in some geographies.
@ 10
Luke does seem like a genuinely good guy. I’ve attended GaryCon each year since the second one and he runs a great gathering and is very responsive to attendees’ needs and concerns.
Russia is making an effort to be “orchiest Orchland” right now.
Well, they seem to have got the first step: “Turn your country into Mordor. Or Isengard.”
Oh, and “transbots?” Like the only “trans” people they can handle are Transformers? Lamest “inclusion” shtick EVER.
Found mostly in Northern European Caucasians.
Very low incidence in Blacks.
@11 Hasbro is already suing them, so what’s a little more fuel on that fire? https://www.geekwire.com/2022/wizards-of-the-coast-files-lawsuit-to-stop-publication-of-tabletop-game-alleging-trademark-violation-and-reprehensible-content/
Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast, which owns Dungeons & Dragons, for clarification.
Christ, what next? A revival of FATAL? (Don’t google that.)
Yeah, D&D as written in it’s original form near on 50 years ago was pretty horribly racist, sexist, transphobic etc. And it still has some way to go. But there is good news. Male vs female distinctions when making a character have been removed for decades for instance. Character traits in terms of race have been modified if not entirely removed by giving characters backgrounds for stat bonuses. Like you can just be a strong (+strength stat) but socially awkward (-charisma stat) person of whatever sort instead of a dwarf. And it has always been baked in that the rules are very flexible so as to allow a player to play whatever traits however they like. So I don’t want to say that the work has all been done to sort the game out from it’s fairly bigoted origins, and nor do I say it has gone far enough and is now perfect. But it is improving and continues to improve with each new edition of the rules as written. And it is at least owning and acknowledging it’s origins too. Baby steps and I want to encourage that.
@13 Sickle cell is more complex. If you are a carrier (one copy of the gene), you gain significant protection from a severe case of malaria. If you have the syndrome (both copies of the gene), you not only don’t get the malaria protection benefits, you also get the anemia.
It’s weird to see someone call that out as racism but not
which is the definition of racism: “the belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another”
@12 Your links didn’t work — they just link back to this post.
@17 Hasbro is relentless and humorless and is one of the larger toy companies out there. I’d be more concerned about a lawsuit from Hasbro than a lawsuit from Wizards of the Coast. Hasbro has deep pockets and excellent lawyers.
Although it was hilarious to watch them pitch a fit about the Barbie Liberation Organization.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/547659/barbie-liberation-organization-gi-joe-hacked
https://beautifultrouble.org/toolbox/tool/barbie-liberation-organization/
It is even weirder having a random internet commenter telling me what I should write and why.
Why don’t you go stalk someone else? I find random trolls boring.
From what I’ve spotted reading up on it, another guy entirely managed to revive the TSR name and that guy was using it for something, but then let it lapse and LaNasa’s group jumped in and registered it while it was open.
That’s the story TSR, LLC has been trying to sell, but it doesn’t seem to match up with the facts. WotC bought all of TSR’s intellectual property in 1997, and licensed the use of the TSR marks to another company, which has been using them continually ever since. LaNasa’s group’s legal theories are dubious at best and the facts they claim are extremely suspect, especially since they have been unable to identify when WotC supposedly let the TSR marks lapse.
There is ongoing litigation over the TSR mark, and quite frankly, from this lawyer’s perspective it doesn’t look like TSR, LLC has a leg to stand on.
Speaking of magic and things that go bump in the night
The ghost of princess Diana is messing with the new king’s pens. Because pens are the green kryptonite of monarchs.
@ 8 birgerjohansson
Russia is making an effort to be “orchiest Orchland” right now.
And what does this stupid statement mean?
Evidently there is also character race whose females have four breasts which increase in size when lactating. Not only is Johnson a racist, but he’s a 13-year-old-boy.
I didn’t do that, you cretin.
Nor that, you pathetic git. I will now ignore you as I usually do.
[jrkrideau, perhaps pronounce “orch” as “ork”, as in the baddies]
CX316 @10:
I’ve heard a bit about that whole kerfuffle from some of the people at Catalyst. Quite honestly, given the author in question it’s surprised that it took so long for things to hit that point. Catalyst was worried there was going to be a big blow up from his supporters at Gen Con this year, but it turned out nothing happened: in addition to everything else, he and his fans were also anti-vaxxers and Gen Con required proof of vaccination to get in.
Read the whole story, it’s so worth it. Especially when you get to the part about women wrestling in a pool full of grits. Whoever this guy is, he’s real doozy. The grits wrestling derailed his political campaign and I’m pretty sure the people of North Carolina are better off for that.
He also attacks BLM in the games lore. Is this guy for real? Because he sounds like that AI they let loose on Twitter a few years back. The one that instantly turned into a cartoon racist.
Incidentally, several of the biggest RPG publishers have been moving away from the old ways of defining fantasy races. Wizards (D&D) and Paizo (Pathfinder) have even started to avoid using the word “race” at all, instead talking about “heritage”, “ancestry”, “background”, etc. Even when they call the different peoples “races”, they rarely give them penalties, instead opting for differing advantages and bonuses. Also, both companies make it very clear in their rules that all humans have the same potential, with no mechanical differences between ethnicities or genders.
There are even some very well-received custom rules that do away with concrete in-born racial differences altogether, instead referring to cultures. This one is excellent: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1742807427/ancestry-and-culture-an-alternative-to-race-in-5e
Got it in 45 seconds.
Jim Balter is a mindless troll.
Good idea. I don’t believe you though. Trolls always lie.
Who cares. You wasted 45 seconds of my valuable time and that is enough.
@ 32
I was just humorously musing on another forum how this might all be some Andy-Kaufman-esque performance art prank, especially after that bit about the four-breasted aliens came up.
@19, @33:
WotC is even floating the idea that background should form the character strengths and weaknesses while their heritage only serves inherent inborn traits – e.g., gone are the days of the +2 Dexterity, +1 Wisdom elf. Instead your elven heritage gives you the Fey Blood trait, the ability to get a long rest through meditation, and a superior sense of the world around you while your background as a Sailor would give you your ability score bonuses (Dexterity and Charisma maybe, with proficiencies with sailing vessels and some kind of extra known language.)
@27. jrkrideau : You haven’t noticed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine with all the war crimes committed by Russian soldiers there?
I mean they not literally “Orcs”” of course (& Putin’s killed maybe up to 80,000 of his own troops with his needless war of choice here) but they are behaving rather comparably brutal, ugly and agressive fashion aren’t they?
Oh wait, you’ve been defending Putin’s invasion why and hate Republics in general :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2022/09/09/not-much-to-see-in-the-news-today/#comment-2148692
why again? Serious, honest question for you. As noted in #60 there.. An answer either here or on the thread linked here would be appreciated.
@silvrhalide #23
Being sued by WotC is being sued by Hasbro. Hasbro owns WotC.
I remember hearing about the original game but never played it. I’m guessing the old version wasn’t this racist though? As far as I’m aware the most racist bits in roleplaying games until recently were the older adaptations of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
They were unfortunately faithful to the books which had a savage, dark skinned people from the south riding elephant-like monsters into battle on the side of Mordor (not real subtle there). It also had the men of Gondor and Rohan being some variety of superior human while I think the leaders of Gondor we’re from another, even better place full of better humans… It was pretty bad. From what I saw the modern incarnations dumped all that baggage.
@23: EXACTLY. Hasbro has a lot of money and if they themselves start getting involved, this dipshidiot is gonna be steamrolled. Were Iin his shoes I would cut my losses and take the L immediately. If he had any brains he’d do it now but I digress.
@40 If this asshat had any brains to speak of, he wouldn’t have pulled this stunt to begin with. If the TM was being used continuously, then they’re dead in the water. Trademarks don’t expire if they are in continuous use. Patents and copyrights expire, eventually, go into the public domain. Trademarks do not, unless they stop being used. Case in point: Disney and Mickey Mouse. Micky is, for all intents and purposes, a trademark, the face of the House of Mouse and will be protected as such, for as long as Disney is active, so functionally, forever. But Minnie, Goofy, Donald and the rest of the gang are copyrighted, which means that they will eventually pass into public domain. But not Mickey.
I think that these entitled morons tried for a land grab, thinking nothing would happen to them.
@28 Human female breasts increase in size when lactating. Also during pregnancy and to a certain extent, during the menstrual cycle.
But the rest of the analysis is spot on.
@ 19, 33, 36 If you really want to move away from RPGs with racist overtones or racist pasts, play RPGs where you play different species, like Runequest, Fringeworthy, or, to a certain extent, Chivalry and Sorcery (at least the first two editions of C&S. The third was a shitshow of epic proportions.) A lot of the characters you could play weren’t even humanoid.
I have the original D&D Rules, in three booklets. I also had a friend who bought everything else. I’d have remembered if the original Star Frontiers was like that. It was decades ago and I was a stupid white kid though? If we played that game, it wasn’t very much. We played Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, and Paranoia instead.
I have played con games one with Gygax and one with Arnesen. Neither one of them IME were nice or kind, for all that I have testimony from people saying they knew them better.