This video is sponsored by Dscryb. Last month, I released a video about
Pathfinder’s relationship with 5e, and that video included a section
where I referenced Wizards of the Coast’s many faux pas. But there was one in
particular I want to talk about a lot more. The big Spelljammer controversy. Because I’ve
seen a lot of people - in YouTube comments, on Twitter, in the replies to Wizards of
the Coast’s apology - claim that this was a non-issue. They ask: “Seriously, what was
so bad about the hadozee from Spelljammer?” If you feel that way, this video is for you.
I’m going to genuinely assume it’s a sincere question. That you are asking because you
really don’t know why this change might be made for legitimate reasons. There are plenty of
people who phrase it in far less reasonable ways, but we’re going to treat it as a good faith
question so we can have an answer, in a clear, concise format, that you can watch. If
you see someone say that the hadozee didn’t need to be changed, that it wasn’t an
issue, you can share this video with them, and hopefully they’ll understand the reason
for the change, and maybe even agree with it. Okay, first things first, let’s establish a
timeline of events. Spelljammer is like D&D in space. For years, people wanted 5e to adapt
Spelljammer - “Spelljammer confirmed” became a meme before every new D&D announcement because
some folks just really wanted new Spelljammer content. A lot of them talked about it
like it was D&D’s version of Star Trek, and mixing D&D with Star Trek just didn’t sound
that interesting to me personally - but then 5e finally announced their Spelljammer setting
books, and it turns out Spelljammer is just Treasure Planet? I cannot believe people haven’t
been referencing Treasure Planet for years when they discuss Spelljammer, it’s such a better
comparison for a fantasy adventure game like D&D. And in the setting of Spelljammer, hadozee
are a race of monkey-like or ape-like people - it depends on the description, we’re
gonna say “ape-like” for this video because it seems like it’s the most consistently used in
Spelljammer materials across editions - they’re ape-like people with wing membranes. Side note,
this has nothing to do with anything - I hate the hadozee’s wings. I don’t know why they’re
there, and to me, they just don’t do a good job of capturing what’s fun or cool about playing
an ape-person. If you want to make an ape-person in D&D, don’t give them wings. If you want to
make a weird alien mishmash of Earth animals, don’t make them mostly look like apes except
for one trait. I know everyone has their own line for what bothers them and what doesn’t in a
game like Dungeons & Dragons and in a setting like Spelljammer, but the wings just really, really
bug me. If I made a video about the core fantasy of each D&D ancestry, hadozee would get a lot
of points docked for those dumb wing membranes. Which, hey, let me know if
that’s a video you’d like to see, I made one about D&D classes but one
about races could be really cool. But anyway, back to the point. In the original lore from the 1980s, hadozee were
originally called “deck apes” before they were given their own name and then we were told that
“deck ape” was a slur. Now, there is a whole other argument to be made about whether you can and
should include the language and context in an RPG that enables players to tell a story about being
from an oppressed minority, complete with in-world slurs and stereotypes. Some people find this to
be an intensely rewarding dramatic experience, but I also don’t think all D&D groups are properly
equipped to tell that story responsibly in a way that might not lead to hurt feelings or unpleasant
experiences. Honestly, this debate is really circling another, larger problem, which is that
D&D books offer very little useful advice to guide Dungeon Masters how to run games that include
these sorts of heavy subjects. I like the Dungeon Master’s Guide as a resource for optional rules
and adventure inspiration, I use the book a lot, but I think if there were more robust tools to
guide DMs on how to run a game, we might not have these same issues. Setting aside the idea that
there are in-universe slurs for the hadozee, the original lore described the hadozee as, among
other things, displaced from their homeworld and had no idea where their home was anymore. They had
been targeted in the Unhuman Wars, until the elves discovered that the hadozee were not as monstrous
as goblins or the other enemies of the Unhuman Wars - the hadozee were “the good ones.” Hadozee
were brought aboard elven ships, and regarded the elves with a lot of affection and respect, while
the elves gave them very little consideration. Now, I have no reason to assume any of this
was deliberate, but the language around the hadozee felt a little tone-deaf in regards
to how reminiscent it is of the descriptions [sic] of Black people across US history. The context
here is that Black people are, historically and sometimes currently, compared to apes as a slur,
so when you saddle your ape-themed aliens with other elements of lore that remind people of Black
stereotypes, it raises an eyebrow. The idea that the hadozee have no homeworld rubs people the
wrong way because of how reminiscent it is of how many Black people raised in white nations
often don’t know what country their ancestors were originally taken from. The description
of hadozee as a model minority ruffles the feathers of those familiar with how minorities
are treated and depicted, outside of just the Black experience. The fact that the hadozee are
happily subservient to the elves is not awesome. If the hadozee had just been ape people, no
one would have cared; if it had just been a group of aliens who really loved, quote, “Good and
happy work” and had way more affection for their… masters than their masters had for them, again it would have been a bit unpleasant
but maybe not the end of the world. Mixing those two elements does make it feel
especially uncool to put this in print. This brings us to our first argument, the most
common I’ve seen: “D&D released a race of ape people, and some folks linked them to People of
Color - for no reason.” And I want to clarify, nobody had an issue with a group of monkey
people or ape people. That’s fine. That’s not the problem. In order to get to why people
are upset about the old Spelljammer material, and particularly upset about
the material as presented in 5e, what matters is the context.
What matters is the lore. And Wizards of the Coast seemed to
realize this - my understanding is that someone brought this up to them
on Twitter before the new release, and Wizards of the Coast confirmed that they were
going to address the loaded language and find a path forward that wasn’t racially charged.
I haven’t been able to find that Tweet, it turns out “Hadozee” brings up a *lot* of
other results now thanks to the 5e release. So, let’s address the new lore in 5e’s
Spelljammer. Because it turns out, what they *did* include was
actually kind of a problem. First, they included some art of the hadozee as a
bard - and the clothing and the pose are inspired by minstrels. At best, this is thoughtless
and maybe a bit distasteful given the history of minstrel shows in American history. But you
might ask, “So what, someone playing a hadozee can’t play a bard? We can’t show them as a bard
at all?” And that’s a fair point, we should be able to depict hadozee as any class. But, as a
counterpoint… here’s the artwork of the bards from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. There are tons of
ways to depict bards in ways that don’t tread into minstrel territory. But more importantly, if this
is all that we’d seen, I don’t know if it would have gotten the same pushback. Some people still
would have objected, I still don’t think this was, like, a good move, pick a different way to depict
your ape-inspired bard, please. And honestly, there *should* be a piece of art of a hadozee as
a bard that is not reminiscent of minstrel shows… to show players and DMs how they can play these
apes as bards without describing them with this sort of insensitive language. We don’t need
a sidebar or anything guiding players how to avoid certain pitfalls - although, come to think of it,
that’s not a bad idea, I’d actually like a sidebar like that - but we don’t *need* it. We just need
a positive example we can point to as something we can model. And this gets into the subject of what
Wizards of the Coast’s responsibility is when it comes to this sort of content, and we’ll come back
to that later. But once again, I’ll also say that I don’t think this would have been the end of the
world… if not for the lore that accompanied it. So let’s talk about the lore. In the new Spelljammer book, we learn that the
hadozee *did* have a home planet where they were just peaceful animals. Then a wizard abducted
them and fed them potions that transformed them into humanoid versions of themselves, standing
upright and gaining more intelligence. It seems like this was intended as a Planet of the Apes
reference, and we’ll come back to that later, too, but the issue here is that the idea that
Black people being taken from their homeland and “civilized” is, again, a very old idea with
its roots in colonialism and white supremacy. Why did that need to be in the space dragons book? As part of this process, the wizard also gave the
apes the ability to be more “resilient to harm.” This is probably meant to justify the idea that a
hadozee PC would have more hit points than, like, a normal ape. However, this idea is uncomfortably
similar to another misconception about Black people - that they feel less pain than white
people. That misconception is so pervasive, it’s still present in the modern health
care industry. It’s a bias that is taught to doctors still today, in our modern world.
People *die* because of this misconception. Why did this need to be in the space dragons book? And why did the wizard do all of this? Well,
not out of a sense of scientific exploration or magical research - his goal was to train the
hadozee as soldiers and sell them to the highest bidder. You know… as slaves. They were literally
abducted from their homeland to be sold as slaves. Why is there a history of attempted
slavery in the space dragons book? As a side note… very interesting that none
of the other animal races in D&D have ever needed an explanation like this for their
own existence. Just the ape-people. Awesome. Additionally, from what I can tell,
all of this lore was *added.* Please correct me if I’m wrong and the
slaver wizard was in earlier lore, but I haven’t found that source. When we knew
the hadozee would be in Spelljammer for 5e, all people were asking for was a bit of
consideration for how the older hadozee lore tread into some uncomfortable territory.
Wizards of the Coast acknowledged this, that’s why they made some changes. But what they
*added* did not need to include a slave trade, or someone abducting or civilizing the
hadozee. This was all added. For no reason. In fact, as part of Kyle Brink’s OGL Apology
Tour, during the interview he had with Three Black Halflings, he was asked questions about
Wizards of the Coast’s practices - and one of the topics that came up was, of course, the
hadozee controversy. And he basically said that someone very high up in the team stepped in
last-minute and added this hadozee lore because that individual had a lot of affection for
the earlier editions of D&D and thought it was fun and pulpy to include this stuff.
Now, this only makes sense if the slaver wizard was in an earlier edition, let me
know in the comments if he is, otherwise this justification makes no sense. But for the
sake of argument, let’s say it’s true. If it is, then this brings us to a pretty huge topic -
what is the purpose of slavery in D&D games? Now, that’s a subject we really don’t have time to
get into in the depths it deserves, and it’s not one that I’m prepared to examine in full detail
without consulting some sensitivity readers, but I still wanted to discuss it briefly, because
it’s so relevant to this discussion. In theory, I get why it could be cool to play someone who
was in some form of slavery and broke their way out. If we can distance ourselves from the Black
experience for a moment, I know there are a ton of gladiator stories that feature this sort of
trope, and that can be awesome. Additionally, slavers could be villains in your adventure,
it’s not my favorite trope because I don’t know that it’s always done super well, but I’m
not saying it could never happen. And, third: Sure, if you’re telling a story about a gritty
world where the worst of humanity is on display, slavers might be a part of that. In the first
episode of “The Last of Us,” the old man tells Joel that there are slavers out in the wilderness,
and nobody said, “Ugh, what are slavers doing in my zombie apocalypse fiction?” No, like, they
could fit the setting and serve a purpose. But while there are a whole host of other subjects
we could tackle under that topic, there’s two main points that I think are worth making for this
video. One, again, I think we’re circling the same problem as we did with in-universe slurs -
if you’re going to present something as tricky as slavery in your D&D game, you need to have the
tools to handle it responsibly. In my safety tools video, I shared a checklist of items you
could choose to include or not in your game, and that’s a good start. But maybe if a modern
adventure included slavers as the villains, like if Wizards of the Coast published a modern
version of “Scourge of the Slave Lords,” then it could perhaps open with some useful advice
for the DM for how to run those villains in a way that highlights their evil but doesn’t
dovetail them into other turbulent subjects, like abuse or sexual violence, that are so
often paired with stories about slavery. I’m not an expert in depictions of slavery, so
once again, right now I’m not saying “never put slavery in your D&D games,” this subject
is something we’ll revisit some other time, but if this subject is included in your
campaigns, it needs to be handled with care. But second, all the potential virtues of
including something as evil as slavery in a game? Well, they just don’t apply to Spelljammer or
to the hadozee. The heroes don’t get to feel like they’re fighting against this injustice,
because it happened hundreds of years ago and that wizard is long gone. It doesn’t contribute
to the hadozee’s role in society, since you can - and Wizards of the Coast eventually did
- completely remove it, and it has no bearing on playing a hadozee in your games, it’s unlikely
to come up in most Spelljammer games regardless. And most importantly, it doesn’t contribute to
building an atmosphere of gritty reality because, and I cannot stress this enough, *this is the
goofy high-fantasy space dragon book*. There are giant hamsters in this game. I’m not saying you
can’t tell a complex story about morality in a world that has a bunch of goofy stuff in it, you
totally can. The Andor TV show takes place in a setting where one of the most beloved characters
is a giant dog-man with a laser crossbow, this stuff can be done well. But when we have
no tools for how to effectively and ethically use this content in our games, then all it does is
upset people, and it doesn’t belong in the book. And now, a word from our sponsor. (Classical music plays) Wow, what a transition. Okay… Wel-… welcome to great moments in D&D History,
presented by Arctivus Gleem. Episode 6: The Hadozee? Ooh, boy, um, you know what?
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describe what’s going on in your game. And these words are written with care, to make sure they fit
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No? All right... Now, of course, I’ve heard the counterargument
from people online that the new hadozee lore was just intended to be a “Planet of the Apes”
reference, they weren’t trying to evoke any real-world racist history. To which I respond…
have you ever watched a “Planet of the Apes” film? The famously political franchise about animal
abuse and slavery and society and role-reversals? Look, I’m not saying those films handle their
subject matter flawlessly - the originals are dated and sometimes cover these complex topics
in fairly heavy-handed ways, and the new trilogy started with a morality play about how it’s bad
to try to cure Alzeimers, these movies are not perfect. But the reason they’re successful and
really well-regarded is because their goal was to try to hold a mirror up to society and tell
the audience something about themselves. This backstory for the hadozee theoretically could
have even worked if the intent was, you know, to try to convey something about the plight
of minorities or the horrors of colonialism. But it doesn’t read that way… because it
seems to have happened completely by accident. Of course, that’s the problem. Reading it,
it almost feels like a bunch of stereotypes were shoved into the book for the purposes of
entertainment. But that’s not what happened - this was totally accidental. Wow,
it’s almost as if these toxic, white supremacist ideas are
so pervasive in our culture, a bunch of well-meaning writers didn’t
even realize they were quoting them. And of course, that’s the problem. The creative
team behind Spelljammer was either completely homogenous, or the People of Color on the
team weren’t in positions of any authority to execute on changes they felt needed to be
made. Both in Wizards of the Coast’s apology and in Kyle Brink’s interview with Three Black
Halflings, we learned that the hadozee section didn’t get reviewed by a sensitivity
consultant - and according to Kyle, this was because Wizards of the Coast’s practice
at the time was to have their sensitivity readers only look at the parts of their books where they
thought they might be saying something that needed review. There were other factors as well - as
I said earlier, this lore was apparently added last-minute and thus wouldn’t have been reviewed
by very many people. But more importantly, the creator and their peers didn’t feel it needed a
review. Which, of course, speaks to a fundamental misread of the *goal* of hiring a sensitivity
consultant. The entire reason you do that - the entire purpose behind that job existing - is to
show them something you wrote and say, “Point out the things I missed. Show me where I went wrong,
because I don’t necessarily know what to look for." And so, like I promised, let’s talk about
Wizards of the Coast’s responsibilities here. They are the biggest name in tabletop
gaming, let alone the stewards for an enormously popular franchise that is nearly
50 years old. It is their responsibility to not include material that is potentially
going to alienate new people coming into the hobby - especially during a time when they
are trying to recruit a diverse new player base. So it was their responsibility
to change it, it’s just that simple. Now, this is something we’ve talked about on the
channel before, but some people don’t feel that way. They feel that the onus is on Dungeon Masters
to change the things they don’t like - which they should feel empowered to do, since that is part
of the role of the Dungeon Master. But I don’t agree. Sure, yes, if we don’t like something,
we can cut it. But the fact that we have that option shouldn’t absolve Wizards of the Coast
of their responsibilities to print good books. And especially, if Wizards of the Coast produces
products that are going to actively hinder or harm the play experience of people in the hobby, or
make people think that playing TTRPGs just isn’t for them because this industry is apparently
still struggling with basic stuff like “Don’t do a racism,” then I think it’s fairly reasonable
for them to change it. Which, of course, they did, they took out a couple of sentences and removed
one piece of art. And that’s all we wanted. Now we can still have our space apes, because
the idea of space apes was never the problem. And here’s the thing - I absolutely understand
why a bunch of white people looked at this text before it went out the door and
didn’t notice anything wrong with it. Because I also didn’t notice anything wrong
with it. I heard it was controversial, but I had to read it maybe two or three
times before I realized what the issue was, only after other people had even
pointed out that it was controversial. And that’s okay - not noticing this or not feeling
offended by this doesn’t make you a racist. We all grew up under the shadow of hundreds of years
of white supremacy, some of these ideas are so deeply embedded in our culture that a bunch of
probably well-meaning people can put it in their space dragon game and completely not notice they
did it. That doesn’t mean they’re bad people. It just means we still have work to do: to consider
the impact of the words and imagery we use. To make sure creative teams are diverse, that diverse
creators are given a voice to enact change when problems do arise during the process, and to
have your damn sensitivity readers actually read the whole book, and listen to everything they
say. Because not taking that step was really, really incompetent, and when you make a
mistake like this, it kinda maybe doesn’t matter if you’re a good person or not, because
you sure aren’t using your platform responsibly. All we want is for this game to not upset
people. This is basic Kindergarten stuff. It’s not “politics,” it’s not “woke,” it’s
just empathy, and a little bit of media literacy. And yet, of course, a bunch of people were upset
that Wizards changed it. Not because they cared one way or the other about the hadozee lore -
but purely because they didn’t think a company should bend to the whims of angry people
online. So they got angry online, ironically. So, if you’re someone who has heard out
this argument, and you still feel like it shouldn’t have been changed, here’s a
question to sit with. If some people are upset by the material in a book and
they have very reasonable complaints about the way it reflects their culture’s
history of oppression and stigmatization, and some other people aren’t upset and don’t
care until anyone says anything… Why would we take the side of the people who didn’t care, and
didn’t want it changed? I find “Don’t change this because it doesn’t upset me” to be an extremely
boring approach to handling material that upsets other people because it carelessly used the
language and ideas of oppression or bigotry. If someone asks you to do something nice for them
- or just to stop hurting them - and someone else doesn’t care at all, doesn’t have a dog in the
fight - why wouldn’t you do that nice thing? And if those people don’t care until you change
something, and they just disagree with the idea of changing things to be nicer to people…
those aren’t the kind of people we need to give our attention to. Why would we want to campaign
for *more* apathy and callousness in the world? Thank you so much for watching. As a quick
note, I want to address something else I said about Spelljammer back in my Pathfinder
video. I referenced the argument that there are functionally no ship-to-ship combat rules
in the new Spelljammer books. But while I was doing research for this video, I was listening
to one of the Three Black Halflings episodes where they reviewed the new Spelljammer book,
and they started talking about the ship-to-ship combat rules - and that surprised me. The
most persistent complaint I’ve heard about Spelljammer - besides hadozee - is that there
was no ship-to-ship combat. Full disclosure, I’ve only read the character creation section of
the book - I’m trying to be a better player, and for my specific definition, that sometimes means
not being a backseat DM in our Spelljammer game, so one method to achieve that is just not to read
the books I don’t need to, and just trust the DM. But it turns out there are rules about
ship combat. Are they good? No idea, I haven’t used them yet, I’ve only played two
sessions, we haven’t gotten into a dog fight yet. But the rules exist, so why do some people think
there aren’t any rules? Well, Geek Pantheon made a great video about that, go check it out, he really
gets to the heart of it in a really cool way, I like that video a lot. Anyway, going forward
I’ll try not to repeat the "common wisdom" of the D&D community without fact-checking them,
that’s on me, I’ll get better about that. If you want to support the channel, you can
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villains. Until next time, play fair and have fun.
