In Germany, the discussion rages on whether “Winnetou” by Karl May is still acceptable today. The venerable fantasy role-playing game “Dungeons & Dragons” is experiencing a similar debate. The team revived a setting from the 1980s in August 2022, but some Twitter users today view the “flying monkey-men” as racist. The developers apologize for their mistake and respond.
This is what the content is about:
- In August 2022, Wizards of the Coast relaunched the “Dungeons & Dragons” campaign “Spelljammer: Adventures in Space.” This is a kind of science fiction excursion: Dungeons & Dragons treats space in this campaign the way it commonly treats the Middle Ages, as a source of inspiration for telling adventures.
- Wizards travel through space in a kind of spaceship or flying giant spider and discover new worlds.
- The campaign originally appeared in 1989 and continued until 1993 without ever achieving significant success—now it returns in August 2022 with new rules.
What is so problematic about the setting? A discussion about the people “Hadozee” began on Twitter on August 30:
- The Hadozee were tame creatures, roughly the size of house cats, lived in trees, and could glide from tree to tree thanks to wing-like structures on their arms.
- But then a wizard came to the world, caught Hadozee, experimented on them, enlarged them, and transformed them into bipeds.
- He wanted to make the Hadozee a warrior people to sell them into slavery. However, his apprentices freed the Hadozee, and ultimately the wizard was killed.
In further content, the Hadozee people are described:
- They are said to be curious and optimistic. They would make loud noises or show their fangs.
- The Hadozee are not very interested in philosophy. They just want to joyfully and contentedly do their work. Hadozee also enjoy the simplest tasks.
- The people have a “great love for elves”—which is not returned.
It is said that the Hadozee serve “cheerfully” on the ships of the elves—every homeland they might have had has long been forgotten. In their cultural memory, they have always been on the go.
Critics see parallels between fantasy people and slaves
This is the criticism of it: A user on Twitter explains the problem:
He sees great parallels between the Hadozee and enslaved Africans.
Is it okay if I now call the dragon game racist?
He says: They were earlier “monkey slaves who were not a people” until the elves decided they should be a people, and thus the former monkey slaves decided to work joyfully for them.
A monkey-like people who love being slaves
Another user on Twitter says: “A wizard creates an intelligent race, sells them into slavery, and then a good wizard frees them from their chains. They work for elves, but they are not respected.”
A third user states: “The Hadozee could be such a fun, well-written people. But instead, they are made into monkey-like slaves who love being slaves and who love their oppressors.”
From the critics’ perspective, a racist story is being told in a fantasy universe about a people who are saved by “whites” and then happily accept menial duties for their rescuers and are satisfied with it. This seems to reflect a hierarchical order within the peoples.
The parallels of enslaved and transported Africans sting the critics painfully.
Anyone who wants to play Dungeons & Dragons as an MMORPG can find an implementation with Neverwinter:
Wizard of the Coast apologizes for failure, removes content
How do the developers respond? Wizards of the Coast announced in June 2020 that they would move away from racial stereotypes and have now issued a statement:
It states that they acknowledge and take responsibility for having content in “Spelljammer: Adventures in Space” that is considered offensive. They have failed in this regard, and the team is sorry.
The campaign includes a people called Hadozee, which first appeared in 1982—not all content was properly reviewed before being released.
Over the 50 years in the history of Dungeons & Dragons, some of our characters have been portrayed as evil and monstrous by using descriptions that painfully remind us of how groups have been demeaned and continue to be demeaned in the real world. We understand the urgency to change how we work to create a more inclusive game.
Wizards of the Coast states that they have immediately removed the offensive content about the Hadozee from the digital version, and this content will not be included in future editions of the books. Furthermore, they are conducting an internal review of how this could go live and aim to prevent this from happening in the future.
Dungeons & Dragons may play a larger role in the mainstream in the coming years. A big movie is on the way:
