OA634: Wizards of the Coast vs. Transphobic Racists
Added 2022-09-26 04:00:04 +0000 UTCSome transphobic and racist a$$holes stole a DnD-like game from Wizards of the Coast and tried to use it for their own racist transphobic purposes with a really stupid "one weird trick." They got busted and dueling lawsuits followed. Andrew has the breakdown!
Links: complaint against wizards, answer and counterclaim, TSR Online Store, Wizards of the Coast files lawsuit against TSR LLC, Schuh affidavit, Rainwater affidavit
Comments
WotC was characteristized in this episode very well with respect to taking efforts to make DnD have less racism/bigotry/etc.. They have taken some steps. However, very recently they re-released a race and the backstory was even more racist than when it was first released years ago. After large backlash, they quietly deleted the really questionable backstory from their website. It's still quite evident how little they let non-White creators and writers into decisions and review processes. See: https://twitter.com/scholasticdragn/status/1564467310030618624?t=szcIB1OJej90r9crEzzJkA&s=19
morrcahn
2022-09-28 18:45:08 +0000 UTCThey did Spellfire collectible card game before they did Dragon Dice. It didn't sell well because it was crap and I think they probably said "Dice! We can do dice, can't we?"
Michael Blank
2022-09-27 18:01:42 +0000 UTCThis episode leaves out the best part (which ties into Thomas's interest, even). Part of the reason they went bankrupt was they felt threatened by an upstart competitor who developed a competitive trading card game in the 90s, which became so massively popular it upended the entire tabletop game industry. Trying to compete with that, TSR developed Dragon Dice, which ended up being such a boondoggle that they only put out four packs before the company went under. And of course, that card game was MTG, released by Wizards of the Coast. Which, ironically enough, was itself named after a faction from a D&D campaign created and played by several of the founders.
Chris Conley
2022-09-27 16:12:47 +0000 UTC
