I think this is the line where I start asking questions.
General forum
Posted on Oct. 6, 2023, 3:46 p.m. by legendofa
I like to think I'm a pretty inclusive and welcoming person. That's an ideal I try to live up to. But Mark Rosewater has confirmed that the word Witch is actively being avoided, and the Druid and Shaman creature types are being evaluated for discontinuation, because those terms are used in real-world religious contexts. This raises some questions for me.
Avoiding "Witch" is easy enough. It has no game significance, and card names can be workshopped. So that's fine, although I'm wondering if anyone has actually complained, or if this is a preventive measure.
Retiring the Shaman and Druid types, though, is a little tougher. I understand that nothing is confirmed; this is just a review, and no action is being taken yet. They might decide to keep them around. So the rest of this thought is hypothetical, assuming they do decide to retire them.
That removes a huge chunk of Green's identity. What will be the generic green equivalent to Wizard or Cleric? For that matter, Cleric is also a real-world religious identifier, as is Monk. What's the status of those? Monk especially can be contentious; the Shaolin Temple, and Buddhist monks in general, seem to be the default, with Benedictine, Franciscan, Capuchin, etc. monks being given much less focus.
I believe WotC's intentions are genuine and supportive. I understand that WotC wants to be as inclusive as possible. I agree with the use of the new word "typal." Mark acknowledges that Druid is less likely to be removed than Shaman. So I don't have any real problems yet, I'd just like some more background.
As I see it, not using the term Witch is fine, causing no long-term issues. Retiring the subtype Shaman is okay, but there's some mechanical rearranging that would need to be done. Retiring both Shaman and Druid leaves mechanical gaps and opens the door to deeper considerations of removal. Honestly, if they just stop printing Shaman cards without making an announcement, I don't think anyone will notice for at least a few sets, depending on the settings. Ultimately, my questions are:
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Has anyone expressed dissatisfaction with the terms Witch, Shaman, or Druid because of their own religious or cultural beliefs? Or is this proactive on WotC's part, likely on the advice of their cultural advisors?
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How likely is Shaman to be retired? How likely is Druid to be retired?
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If Shaman and Druid are removed, what will be the generic green spellcaster?
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If Shaman and Druid are retired, will Cleric, Monk, and probably some other types I'm not thinking of right now be reviewed? Why or why not?
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Is this review for M:tG alone, or WotC as a whole?
I don't expect anyone here to have the answers, since this is a WotC internal matter. I'm mostly throwing this out to the wind to see what the general sentiment is.
TypicalTimmy says... #3
Like all ignorant woke agendas, it starts because Corporate PR tries to get ahead of something in order to appear virtuous and welcoming. In reality, it's to protect their bottom line. Whether we want to believe it or not, the whole "Get Woke Go Broke" mantra does carry significant weight. While instances such as Anheuser-Busch and Target are rare, these are examples of extremes. Other impacts can be seen mostly in box office bombings and discontinued product lines.
It costs tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to launch a product. So when that product fails due to backlash, it costs the company big. Now, for a multi-billion dollar company, that's nothing. Yous barely see it as a dent to their quarterly reports. But that doesn't mean it isn't felt or impactful.
This is likely some bullshit attempt that their PR team came up with, just like how ALL OF A SUDDEN "Tribal" was racist. Yeah no it's not.
Corporate woke agendas are toxic and should be dismissed at every opportunity. Because if a company truly cared about something that really is important, such as helping to improve minority situations, they wouldn't flaunt it on their golden pedestals.
It's done to improve their bottom line and attract investors, nothing more and certainly nothing less. It isn't about us, the people. It's about the money.
October 6, 2023 6:56 p.m.
To start with a generic comment - TappedOut is not a place for denying the existence of cultural insensitivity. It is not for making bigoted comments. It is not for putting your own refusal to change over the well-being of other players. It is not a place for discussing politics.
It is for questioning and learning - which is exactly what legendofa is doing on this thread. This is exactly how this conversation should be handled.
TypicalTimmy demonstrates how not to handle issues like this - insulting others with terms like “ignorant” is neither productive nor welcome in legitimate conversation.
Since threads like this sometimes cause questionable posts, I want to be very up front about this: Polite conversation and questions for clarification is encouraged; aggressive refusal to engage or attacks on others will not be tolerated.
———
Moving on to the thread itself, let us start with the recent history at Wizards (I posted a summary of this on another thread, so apologies to those who have to read this again).
In August, 2022, Wizards of the Coast released a Spelljammer D&D book containing a monkey playable race. A number of the elements read almost word-for-word like slaver justifications for the enslavement of Africans. Using actual pro-slavery language alongside monkey imagery (historically used in racist depictions of African people) very much made it look like Wizards was being racist.
It was probably an accident. But it was an accident that happened due to gross neglect on Wizards’ part - they did not have anyone in the room who knew enough to say “wait, doesn’t this literally look like something from the 1840s?”
To ensure someone was in the room who knew what questions to ask, Wizards has contracted external evaluators, whose job is twofold: (1) Review content to make sure there is nothing problematic prior to release and (2) review existing content to address areas where there is a high risk of accidents happening in the future.
The question in this thread involves the second element - evaluations of existing content for potential high risk terminology.
Accidents are more likely to happen when you are using something that has a high usage rates in insensitive ways or when there is a population who could be offended. Monkey imagery, for example, has such a longstanding racist history that it can easily turn otherwise innocent narratives into something looking like a racist caricature.
Shaman, Witch, and Druid are all terms used by present religious organisations - thus making them ripe for having populations who could be offended. Shaman, in particular, has historically been co-opted by racist groups to mock actual shamans - putting it at a position where it also could have a high rate of inadvertent intersections with racist historical usages.
Whether anything comes of that? That is still to be seen. It is possible to use any of these terms in a non-problematic way, as Wizards has demonstrated numerous times.
My gut feeling is that Shaman might be retired. Frankly, Shaman and Druid are kind of redundant as-is, and the game easily could retcon all Shamans to Druids. Given the historical issues with the term as used by those who do not practice shamanistic faiths, the fact there are people who could be offended, and the fact it doesn’t add much to the game, I think there is plenty of reason (both cultural and mechanical) to reduce redundancy and remove Shaman - regardless of what they choose, keep it or retire it, I would not be surprised. I think this could go either way and really is a bit of a non-issue.
I think Druid is unlikely to be removed - its long-standing usage in fantasy works bad D&D has given it some unique usage within fantasy gaming which insulates if from real world connotations. I expect the same for Monk - though it also is used by present real world religious groups, it also has some insulation from any real world elements due to usage within gaming. I would be surprised if either Druid or Monk was retired.
Notably, Wizards is very much working on an update to D&D and has been very transparent about their design process. If they were considering retiring Monk or Druid within 5.5e they would have said - they have talked about other sensitivity changes in 5.5e before (including within both the Monk and Barbarian classes) and never mentioned any consideration of changing Monk or Druid.
October 6, 2023 7:03 p.m.
Considering words/terms like "tribal" have become problematic I cant say I'm surprised... I just wish context had more weight in these subject matters.
IIn general ts unfortunate what good intentions can lead to... taking people's words away just makes it tough to talk to each other... I always thought as I got older I would have a hard time talking to younger people because of the changes of language like "yeet" and "based".... but it's the words I grew up with that are conversation stoppers lol.
October 6, 2023 9:44 p.m.
I'd like to leave Preacher here, and for people talking about monks, the old Magic settings had religious orders based on Western ones, not so much Eastern, I can't decide if Fleet-Footed Monk is supposed to be a Western or Eastern figure, earlier stuff was heavily European. Aysen Abbey is pretty prominent in Homelands at least, and the set features figures related to that Abbey, culminating in Ol Sideways Finger-Gun-Nun. The Order of the Ebon Hand is a Western inspired (Un)Holy Order IMHO, they even have Ebon Praetor in charge. I'm just saying it's funny, not that at this point a Monk in Magic isn't more likely Shaolin inspired than Hospitaller, the default has moved East it seems.
I do think it's quite possible to do a respectful 'lift' of an idea/concept when writing fantasy/scifi, but I think you do need to use the term in a respectful manner. The term should be tied to it's 'real world' use, and I think if the overwhelming majority of people who collectively identify as such aren't bothered it's probably fine? I mean, they can change their mind later I guess? Anyways, I don't know how I feel about the term 'shaman' specifically because it is afaik non-denominational, it's not tied to it's actual origins and is mostly used by Western powers to denigrate indigenous faiths. Maybe it's good if it goes then, because of the heaps of negative associations? I'm not sure what you could legitimately replace shaman with, maybe 'priest'? That's loaded AF at this point, but even Druid isn't a direct pathway, most shamans are closer to spirit guides than anything Druidic.
October 7, 2023 8:48 a.m.
well said DreadKhan... Im not gonna pretend i know all of the absolute defining differences between a druid and a shaman or a cleric and a priest and all of the nuances in between... but in context when role playing in dungeons and dragons or basically just enjoying any fantasy media its the idea of being or emersion in things that I am not and thats what makes it fun. I certainly am not Balan, Wandering Knight... im not a knight... not a cat... nor do i really have a long winded thesis about all of the political significance and cultural impact of these things....I just think its neat.
October 7, 2023 9:39 a.m.
I don't see such querries as necessary, but I'm not running the business. If they think it's a beneficial business decision, they are welcome to go for it. Unless it means any notable change to gameplay, I think it's a waste of energy that doesn't move many needles.
October 8, 2023 12:28 a.m.
Don't worry. They won't stop there. Because everything can be made offensive, that's why if you acknowledge or engage with woke fools in anyway, they won't stop being offended by the next thing.
October 10, 2023 9:44 a.m.
I don't care about the real world connotations I'm just worried about it from a game play perspective. Are they going to errata 476 shamans and 290 druids? Llanowar Elves is a druid for crying out loud
October 10, 2023 1:38 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #12
I work with rules and laws in my real-life, and changes like this always strike me as a little wobbly. I understand the motivation and all, but the open-endedness of it doesn’t sit well with my rules-brain. I expect that’s where a fair amount of the consternation comes from: without understanding where specifically we’re going with it all, we’re left in a sort of unsettled spot. I think MtG players are especially affected by these (for lack of a better term) fluid scenarios. People are extremely complicated, and trying to plot out Human Interaction, in some sort of a flowchart, is a wild endeavor. I’m not sure if we’ve even really settled on Rule Zero, honestly. Ultimately I think the answer is “nothing’s ever really sorted out, settled, and forever resolved” (which is another thing people inherently desire). Changes come and go. You can be thrilled by them or upset... but they still come and go. I’ll close by agreeing with shadow63: my main focus is on whether or not they accidentally turn off some aspect of the game (existing or future).
October 10, 2023 1:44 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #13
If anything, Alela, Artful Provocateur being a female warlock throws me off more. It's my understanding that witches are female and warlocks are male.
October 11, 2023 7:40 p.m.
Honestly, I can't tell.
Thoughtpicker Witch is a wizard. Sedgemoor Witch is a warlock. Bog Witch is a spellshaper. Spiteflame Witch is a shaman. Who the hell knows anymore.
October 11, 2023 10:22 p.m.
In D&D Warlock is a character class which PCs can take levels, they are nothing like a historic witch, and more like Scarlet Witch from marvel in some ways (they mostly shoot blasts for damage in the editions I am familiar with). There is no associated gender, and they're mostly dedicated artillery for a party. Warlocks have made some kind of pact to gain their power IIRC, so in some editions they had alignment restrictions.
Witch isn't really a class afaik (the closest I know of is that the 3rd edition DM Guide included a 'Witch' class as an example of how to modify classes to fit a campaign), but the historic witch is very different than what most people seem to associate with witchcraft now. I think most people probably think of something like Hocus Pocus, only more serious, and I think traditionally witchcraft was much more associated with women but I didn't think it was truly exclusive, though you didn't call a man a witch obviously. I've definitely heard of using warlock as the male equivalent of witch. Anyways, the Hocus Pocus witch seems a lot like a wizard or sorcerer, but with a different source of power, and probably with a different spell list to work with.
October 12, 2023 12:54 p.m.
Outside looking in it's hard to pinpoint the differences between them. Much like trying to understand the differences between the Sunnis and Shiites or The Taliban ISIS or Al Qaeda.
October 12, 2023 1:20 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #17
In my childhood, which was pre-2000, Witch used to be a derogatory term for a female magic user you don't trust. You don't care where the magic comes from, they could be shamen, druids, wizards or warlocks, just call it witchcraft and Burn at the Stake. I'm still impressed by how Harry Potter managed to own the term and turn it into accepted nomenclature for female magicians.
October 12, 2023 4:09 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #18
Fantasy Shaman and Druids are far enough from actual practices and are benign enough that I personally don't see where anyone could get offended by them. But then again I am of an identity that traditional western culture caters to exactly me. There are lots of things I don't understand as being problematic, but that doesn't mean that the people who have problems don't have a point. If it literally doesn't matter to me in the slightest I don't see why accommodations can't be made to make someone else more comfortable.
The depictions of witches in most fantasy is negative enough and shares enough in common with actual practices of Witchcraft that I'm surprised that they haven't made the decision to discontinue use of the word earlier.
October 12, 2023 10:27 p.m.
Metroid_Hybrid says... #19
The type of people who cry offense over such minor nitpicks are (virtually) always doing-so in bad faith. These are just miserable crybullies, usually motivated by a type of ressentiment, looking to tear down whatever they can; because "misery loves company."
Broad philosophical assumptions aside, it's hard for me not to dismiss this out-of-hand because, like others have noticed, there has been no replacement/alternative term(s) put forward. They just want you to "throw the baby out with the bath water" (to use an arcaic expression) without question... because questions are racist...
October 13, 2023 9:12 a.m.
This is a reminder to keep this conversation polite. Ad hominems are not welcome on TappedOut. Nor is ignoring the well-established reality that words and depictions can, and far too often do, cause real harm.
This is a conversation folks are clearly interested in and it is an important conversation to have. However, it is a conversation which can only exist if kept civil - so let us try to keep things civil so this thread can remain open.
October 13, 2023 9:30 a.m.
Metroid_Hybrid says... #21
Most of the time Ad hominems are purely fallacious arguments. However, my argument is rooted in the fact that these people never actually intend to add to the conversation, only take away and/or destroy.
Somehow things become more inclusive when you exclude?!? Make it make sense..
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavory
Ignorance is Strength
-1984
October 13, 2023 12:19 p.m.
Is anyone upset with anything anyone has said on this thread?
October 13, 2023 5:38 p.m.
Anyone who is a progressive would have to be insulted by several separate posts in this thread. For the record, a huge swath of the US is progressive last I checked, most people support abortion rights, most people support increased gun control, and most people still think racism is bad, all of those are progressive ideas, all of them are extremely mainstream. Even unions are finally starting to make a come back, never forget that worker's rights are the pinnacle of progressive that our forefather fought (and literally died for in many, many cases) for.
It's fascinating seeing people try to mental gymnastic their way into pretending that 'woke' is a pejorative term... it pretty much means you know history, that's about it. Is knowing history a bad thing? I never thought so. So yeah, if someone wants to offer me a new definition of 'woke' feel free, whenever someone asks anyone who's 'anti-woke' to actually explain their position they seem to never actually have a definition of what is 'woke', merely a series of vague examples of things they already don't like.
Also, pretty sure 1984 has a relatively progressive message, the baddies are pretty clearly fascist conservatives. Anyways, being told you can't insult people in a non-public place (which this is btw) isn't oppression, it's an example of another person (be they a human or a corporation) exerting their own property rights. It's the same reason malls are allowed to kick people out, a mall is in no way a public place, even if it's a place where most of the public is welcome, it's a private building. It's also the same reason it wouldn't have been a violation of anyone's rights to shadow ban conservative accounts on social media, those are private spaces you're being allowed access to, not an entitlement under the law.
October 13, 2023 7:05 p.m.
Once again, let us try to keep this thread on-topic and avoid veering this topic into politics. It does not matter what side of the spectrum you are on--TappedOut is not the place for your political musings.
The topic of this thread is helping the OP better understand MaRo's comments and the possible reasoning behind them--not one of the three above comments contributed to that discussion. Let us try to stick to that rather than degrading into political bickering. It is not fair to OP and it is not fair to those genuinely interested in the discussion if the thread has to be locked because some folks feel the need to derail it.
October 13, 2023 7:18 p.m. Edited.
legendofa What line are you referencing being crossed?
October 13, 2023 10:22 p.m.
jamochawoke says... #27
Warlock is just as much a religious term as Witch is in the neopagan, magickal, and hermetic communities.
All of this noise (except there isn't any, maybe on tumblr?) for the tiniest fraction of members from the pagan revival attempts from the 1920s and 1960s who suddenly feel left out or offended because witch is a totally loaded word and they can't accept that without some cultural re-engineering attempts.
It's also just so incohesively applied, with many other religious terms and titles thrown about willy nilly. Just like the "some of our cards are racist and we apologize" nonsense (when like 2 were, 1 blatant and 1 kinda sideways, the rest were such absolutely ridiculous stretches). Or the "we apologize for the political views of our artists" except they are even more pick and choose in that area.
Either get rid of all religious terminology for the off chance of offending a tumblr artist, pearl clutching churchgoer, or someone on X/Twitter in the real world, or don't fret about it and have your fantasy religions be fantasy religions.
But this is also the same company that decided to have different members of the same genetic family be completely different races in the LotR set for inclusion and representation purposes... so I'm not holding out hope for it. They don't research or apply logic to anything. They just "go with the social flow" even if it's completely backwards.
(I even searched far and wide to find any actual real POC who actively wanted that for the LotR set and found exactly 1 guy, who said he can't feel attached to anything that doesn't have his race in it and was collecting political movements on social media like merit badges, his biggest complaint about anything LotR, even the Amazon series, was that there isn't enough black or indigenous people to be enjoyable... having some kind of metaphysical quota like that is called being actually racist in my book. Are we really bending society on its ear for stuff like this one unreasonable person's views?)
October 13, 2023 10:50 p.m.
Oof_Magic The line my title is referring to is whether I think WotC is taking useful, necessary action or simply doing things for the sake of doing things. Since no real action has been taken yet, I'm doubting that anything will actually happen, at least in the immediate future. None of my questions have been substantially answered; as such, I'm reserving judgement.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be upset with WotC. They've committed at least four major missteps recently, in my opinion, and Caerwyn outlined one of them above. Not all of them have a "politically correct" or "woke" basis. This is not one of them so far, but it has the potential to become one for me. That's why I'm asking questions about their motivations and intentions.
I don't consider simple discussion of appropriateness to be a reason to get mad. In fact, it's a discussion that they should be having, in my opinion. I also think that Shaman and Druid should not be retired, unless someone does have legitimate personal concerns about their usage. Witch, I could go either way on. If it lets people, including witches, feel included, keep it. If not, then it doesn't truly add anything to the game. If it makes people feel excluded, it can be safely removed.
I have not seen any reports of anyone rejecting the game because they considered the use of Witch, Shaman, or Druid personally disrespectful, but I have to admit, I haven't dug too deeply. As I said before, I don't think removing the term Witch will cause any harm one way or another, but removing Shaman or Druid will cause mechanical issues. If people are not harmed by their inclusion, or even welcomed, they should stay.
My opinion going forward depends on the M:tG team's decision.
October 14, 2023 12:44 p.m.
I tend to agree, but with some of WotC's decisions, I don't know that I trust them in making such assessments. I don't think I can pin certain cards but when they removed the 'problem' cards, did they provide an alternative for their effects (to Metroid_Hybrid's point)? Or were the effects problematic as well?
I don't think Witch has been used as a creature type so getting rid of Witch in name doesn't effect gameplay at all. But Shaman and Druid? I'd be alright with trying Gilt-Leaf Archdruid and Rage Forger in the same deck but the point is that if the words are problematic and the words are creatures types, how do you make an appropriate change (if any is necessary) without affecting gameplay? That's for the business to decide, and for the customer to affirm/deny.
October 14, 2023 3:34 p.m. Edited.
I think that this is actually much different from the typal train of thought just because these creature types are in universe words rather than in game terms. Not that I really mind changes to cards going forward, it's just, it's being used to describe fictional characters in a fantasy setting, so it really is just removed an extra degree from the real world comparisons. Like, I'm ex-military but I don't think there is any line at all to be drawn to the soldier type, and I'm currently a farmer, and I don't know, I just really doubt they mean me when they name a creature a peasant : )
I guess I'm pretty on the fence on this one, but I just wish they would take a year, really evaluate the big problems with magic, and then come back for these, final-editing kinds of issues.
Almost constant price increases
rushed storylines
never addressing cards curling
the fact that commander games need to come with keyword hot sheets
fire design leading to the completely negative space of playing against overpowered cards and playing with overpowered cards that will just get banned
so many versions of cards that it actively preys on or turns off people who collect sets
reprints and the secondary market...just take a stance. Saying "we don't pay attention to the secondary market" while doing it is actually the worst response.
I mean, I'm not saying that Mark Rosewater can solve all of these issues, but maybe if he's got 40 hours a week, try and tackle one important thing and then come back to witches.
October 16, 2023 6:58 p.m.
Niko9 - It is important to avoid false equivalencies in conversations like this.
Wizards is not diverting staff to this issue - they hired an outside contracting firm to do a review of their current policies and will use contracted services to do a final check on products before release. This allows them to keep their actual staff focused on the game itself, without diverting significant resources to hiring long-term employees whose job is to look out for these kinds of mistakes.
The problems you listed are being handled by fundamentally different teams - those are either being handled by the design teams or the story team (or are completely outside of Wizards’ control and not really fair to blame them for). None of those teams are having resources diverted away to solve this issue, so Wizards is fully able to power ahead on any of the initiatives you addressed while simultaneously engaging in their equity review.
Accordingly, it is not really a “put effort into coming up with solutions to other problems, then come back to this” situation, and painting it as such is trying to equate the efforts of completely unrelated teams.
I also want to address the statement that this is not a priority. It is not for you. It is for others, and it is for Wizards - that is one reason they brought on an outside team rather than try to build their own, which is a much longer process.
Magic has been lucky so far, without any huge disasters - so, if you only play Magic, you very well might not see the need. But, as I mentioned previously, Wizards has has a huge disaster recently. They know that they can and will make mistakes that can hurt their players, and it is only time before their ignorance makes the same mistake again.
“We do not want to be careless and hurt our players by accidentally releasing racist content again” is a perfectly valid position for a company to prioritise.
October 16, 2023 9:26 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #33
But you don't combat racism by eliminating classes from your content.
Druid and Shaman are cultural roles, not racial ones, and my personal opinion is that by actively starting to exclude those from your fantasy content, you disrespect their cultures of origin more than you're promoting inclusivity.
October 17, 2023 12:41 a.m.
DarkthDrizzt says... #34
So to prevent offending a group of people they remove any mention of that group of people? I would understand removing offensive slur words descriptions of a group of people, but removing any mention of a group of people is offensive in of itself not to mention counterproductive towards increasing understanding and sympathy with other groups of people. I could easily see certain religious groups that hate witches try to remove any and all mentions of witches, but to do so in the guise of not offending a group of people is patronizing. Not to mention that trying to remove groups of people from D&D stories & worlds removes the opportunity to build sympathy in these worlds through empathetic world building. I disagree vehemently with the notion that the best way of not offending people is by removing any mention of said people. Imagine trying not to offend people by removing any mention of them from history textbooks, books of fiction, etc.
October 17, 2023 11:38 p.m.
DarkthDrizzt I think you are asking in good faith so I'm going to respond in kind. I highly doubt anyone is going to take issue with the word druid, or honestly even witch but they've already circumvented the latter with the warlock type. So I'm going to focus on the word shaman, and how it has real world context that might be difficult or offensive for certain people.
These are MTG cards though, not history textbooks. So WOTC is not removing history or identities. In your argument, you would gain sympathy for a shaman by seeing their creature type on an MTG card? I see what you are trying to say about building sympathy, but consider a real world shaman did say that they did not like seeing their religion or practice represented via wizard battle card game. Would your response really be "but this is how I can learn about your culture and gain sympathy for it"? Should we prioritize people with no knowledge of a culture or religion being exposed to it via wizard battle card game over people from that culture or religion having a say in how/when they are depicted? Especially people who have historically not had a say in how their culture was stolen, depicted, misrepresented, etc like Native American people.
I do not know if anyone would actually be offended by this word being used as a card type. But when I think of the real world historical instance of Shamanism, I think majoritably of different groups of Native Americans, who have already had their culture misinterpreted, demeaned, bastardized, and mysticized enough. So my main thought here is, sure the chance might be low that someone is offended by the word shaman. But if someone did find it offensive or off color, I would respect that- and I think at the end of the day it is really that simple. If WOTC wants to take a step towards inclusivity or deference - Why does that make so many people in this thread so angry? If you really want to gain sympathy for or learn about cultures that includes practices of shamanism, MTG isn't the way to go about learning that.
October 18, 2023 9:06 a.m.
Tsukimi I understand that argument to a degree but I think it's possible to look at a shaman inside mtg or other fictional setting and separate it from real world shamans. Like I don't look at a card like Avacynian Priest and think of a guy at my local church even though the church of avacyn is heavily inspired by real world religions beliefs.
October 18, 2023 11:03 a.m.
shadow63 I understand that this is possible, but what I find odd is that a lot of people on this thread are saying something like "I can separate the two" or "I don't find it offensive". Well... If you're not from that culture or spiritual practice, of course you don't? No one is saying the two can't be separated, what WOTC is potentially deciding is whether or not to distance themselves from classes of "wizards" that represent real world cultural or religious practices that have historically not been understood/treated well by the public at large. Making comparisons to one of the most mainstream religions when discussing this feels like a false equivalency. It's not a question of whether or not it is possible to separate a shaman in MTG and a shaman in real life, we are all fully capable of this. It's a question of whether or not certain depictions could be considered offensive or harmful to groups that historically have had to deal with a lot of misinformation, bigotry, etc and.... just move away from even the potential of that happening.
October 18, 2023 12:30 p.m.
After thinking about this for a few more days, my position has sort of solidified a little bit, but I'm still open to change.
WotC is trying to keep M:tG open, accessible, and welcoming to everyone. (Whether that's due to genuine moral interest in diversity or a desire for more income is beside the point.) They have taken action recently to advance that position.
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Banning cards that appears to promote racism. While most of these were clearly not designed to be racist to the target audience, many of them inadvertently took on racist themes as outside groups took advantage of certain symbology to display their bigotry. One of the cards I think was kind of a stretch, but I understand and respect their decision here.
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Diversifying the ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual identity of their major characters. I'm totally on board with this. As a fairly human person living in a very diverse world, this is simply correct. But where's my centaur planeswalker, WotC? Where's the non-bipedal representation? (Tongue in cheek, just a moment of humorous annoyance in a serious topic.)
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Removing the word "tribal" to refer to creature type mechanics. This literally only affects WotC's internal vocabulary, and Mark Rosewater has specifically confirmed that everyone is free to continue using "tribal". No problems here, 100% on board.
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Now, discussion of avoiding Witch, Shaman, and Druid. I've summarized my initial thoughts and feelings above, so now, I ask for further help.
Would anyone be willing to share any sources of bigotry centered around these terms and concepts, either now or in the past, or contact with a practitioner who believes they should not be used? Conversely, does anyone have anything suggesting that including Shaman, Witch, or Druid has been appreciated and beneficial? I'm asking for sociological study, personal anecdotes, anything that could potentially be verified. I'm not looking for gut feelings, suspicions, or emotional reactions; I have enough of those and I'm trying to get rid of some. I'm genuinely unsure, as in I don't know one way or the other, if there's a significant cultural basis for removing Shaman and Druid. A surface-level skim hasn't come up with much more than mentions of appropriation by various countercultural movements and a handful of claims from people professing to be witches that they would like to have continued representation, and I don't have the time or focus to do a deep dive right now.
I apologize for
October 18, 2023 12:47 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #39
Of course MtG is not study material to brush up on other cultures, but it is a point of contact for the uninitiated. I know the term Shaman through Magic first, and the only reason I heard the term Druid before is because of Asterix.
I don't think the anger is about trying to prevent people getting hurt, but more about a fictional escape from the real world being creatively stumped by people taking personal offense of your enjoyment. And now the game has to give up part of its established identity for it, and your argument why is: "If you really want to gain sympathy for or learn about cultures that includes practices of shamanism, MTG isn't the way to go about learning that."? That goes both ways, right, so if we can accept that MtG is not the place to look for real world representation, then so can the people who object to the word "Shaman" in the game. It feels like Magic loses out on design space because of arbitrary reasons, because real world people unable to dissociate from the fictional characters in front of them, and chosing to take personal offense instead. I'm not WotC, but I would feel bad to lose part of my creation to cater to that.
In today's world it's a financial risk to offend people though. I understand that, from the motivation of the continued existence of the game, changes like these are probably inevitable. I might be personally effected by the next one and look back on my words with a whole new understanding. The issue is complex, and I don't think it's progress to stop talking about it and to avoid everything altogether by exclusion in the future.
So to get back on topic, if the types have to be discontinued, maybe an Elementalist type could be introduced to replace them. That woul probably cover the fantasy base of their powers. Both types work closely with Elementals already, like Tatyova, Steward of Tides or Young Pyromancer, so making that the new green base spellcaster would fit. It would be fun to have a creature with "Elemental Elementalist" in the typeline :P
October 18, 2023 1:05 p.m.
Does anyone think that this issue is in their top 5 concerns with Wizards? Card stock, reprint policy, creatively stale storytelling, digital medium issues, the impact of FIRE design philosophy across formats, the sheer amount of formats developed over the past 6 years, the impact direct to consumer sales and digital mediums have on LGSs and the potential feedback loop degenerating paper play, but this is their focus? Multitasking capability does not make the unnecessary necessary.
Someone collects a paycheck while pontificating over such matters. Is this a dire concern to anyone? We can come up with rational opinions on the subject but should this be a priority? Does this demand focusing resources to accomodate? Are they going to make this change and expect a flock of... socerers(?) to come into the game? Regardless of rational opinions on the matter, what is driving this focus on terminology?
October 18, 2023 3:01 p.m.
Oof_Magic I'm actually not sure where this is on their priority list. The only public mention I've seen is on Mark Rosewater's blog, and WotC is usually pretty good about being public with upcoming major changes. Not great, but better than a lot of other entertainment companies.
Also, they have a dedicated group reviewing this, just as they have a dedicated team reviewing card stock quality, a dedicated team on story development, a dedicated team for digital play, etc. So it's not really correct to say this is their focus. It's a focus, one of many, and possibly not even a major one right now. The terminology discussions are most likely part of the drive that most profit-driven companies have: to expand their market as wide as possible. I don't have anything solid to back this up with, but I would expect that for every person who leaves the game because of concerns about the terminology, two come in. So if a policy brings in more people than it drives off, that's a net gain for interaction, market presence, and, of course, potential income.
October 18, 2023 3:45 p.m.
jamochawoke says... #42
As someone who has been part of a few companies with new policies akin to this I can say with reasonable experienced suspicion that they are being implemented in spite of sales policy, instead of because of it. There are absolutely politically-oriented people that get into executive and marketing positions that spend enormous amounts of money and company time to implement things like this, and there are those executives who are terrified of getting cancelled by twitter mobs (which is usually like 3 to 5 people and their hundred or so followers until it gets published in a gaming rag online somewhere because it's a slow news day) so implement whatever those others say regardless of the impact to the product or sales. At that point numbers and logic go out the window. I've witnessed it first hand twice now.
October 18, 2023 5:44 p.m.
Products serve the consumer. You can look to reviews but when it comes to your consumer decisions, that is based on your opinions. Forget about whether WotC's internal data shows such a decision to be profitable or not. Does this use of resources please or bother you?
October 18, 2023 5:54 p.m.
Oof_Magic I'm not quite sure where this question is leading. If I dislike a company's policies or product enough, I'll stop using that company. If I agree with the policies and enjoy the products, I'll support the company. But I don't think the company is beholden to me personally. I don't think I represent the whole consumer base for any company, and my decisions alone will have minimal overall effect on what the company does. I am not responsible for the company's resources, and their obligation is to satisfy their consumer base as a whole, not any individual.
Does this use of resources please or bother me? I stated earlier that I believe this discussion is important. I don't have any insight on what resources are being allocated to this discussion, or to any other topic. Is it three people emailing back and forth with the marketing director every couple of days, or is it a company-wide meeting that happens every morning for two hours? What resources are being used, and how are they being used? How much money, time, and energy is being invested in this, compared to other points I hope WotC addresses? I don't know, so I don't feel like I can answer that question.
It's not as binary as "Yes, this pleases me and I want them to give it their full attention" or "No, I think this is a total waste and want them to stop," and I don't think anybody believes it is. I want this topic to be discussed with the care it deserves, alongside other concerns of product quality being given the care they deserve.
My current position, summarized, is that I believe it's an important conversation to have. My hope is that they find that nobody has been offended or turned away by the use of the Shaman or Druid creature types, and that they will consequently continue to use those types. If they do find that people have been offended by their use of shamanism and/or druidry, then I believe the appropriate response would be to put those types on hiatus as they determine the extent of the problem. There is precedent for this, when Demon was replaced with Beast and related types for several years, until they determined that Demon was an acceptable word to use in its context.
October 18, 2023 7:07 p.m.
Yea like for the record my main point has been that no one here knows enough to say whether or not it's a good idea to have a shaman creature type. But I wouldn't be surprised if that and druid both stay tbh, just will never understand why so many here are so mad about about WOTC even exploring the possibility of changing it.
Also legendofa, well said all around.
October 18, 2023 8:22 p.m.
legendofa You are correct that a company is not beholden to individual customers, but the whole. That whole is made of individuals like you and me. Individual customers are also not beholden to companies. You don't have to make a consumer decision based on one factor, however you are allowed to distinguish factors from one another.
I guess my question is, are you simply looking to confirm whether or not an action was taken? I'm still a bit confused on the line crossed that you mentioned. Company actions rarely ever have no intention behind them. It's a logical waste of resources. So I didn't understand what you meant by 'doing things for the sake of doing things'.
Tsukimi I believe those frustrations have less to do that WotC would explore that space but moreso why.
October 18, 2023 8:41 p.m.
Oof_Magic Sure. My understanding is that so far, no concrete action has been taken on Shaman and Druid, while use of the term Witch has been generally discontinued. There's been discussion about the possibility of taking further action.
Imagine a spectrum going from "This company is wonderful! It's the best!" to "This company is horrible! It's the worst!" Somewhere on that spectrum is "I'll keep using this company, but I'm wondering about their motivations and intentions." That's where I am right now, and that's the line my title refers to.
The "doing things for the sake of doing things" refers to the hypothetical, and in my opinion very unlikely, outcome where they find that nobody has been distressed by the use of Witch, Shaman, and Druid, but decide to discontinue them because of potential future abuse. Again, I do not think this is going to happen. If this is the ultimate outcome, though, I will be less interested in WotC's product. Of course, as Caerwyn has pointed out, they are actively trying to avoid offending customers, and that's a good thing. But if nobody has reported being disrespected, and if two core creature types are permanently removed because of vague future fears with no current concerns (still emphasizing the conditional/hypothetical), then I will be less likely to support them going forward. It's all hypothetical around my worst-case scenario.
I'm trying not to come across as doom-and-gloom-the-game-is-ruined. I'm just curious about where the discussion is right now, what the official stance is likely to be, and, when they make a decision, what the basis for their decision will be, whichever way it goes. I'd like them/Maro/someone to say, "Here's what we decided, this is why, and this is what's going to happen next." It's not distrust, per se, but more of a discomfort of not knowing what's going on and what to expect.
October 18, 2023 9:15 p.m.
I am not going to spend much time on Druid--as I noted above, I do not think there is much of an issue with it due to its firmly independent fantasy meaning. I expect it was mentioned on the list because it is used by real-world religions, and thus is something they are looking at from that context--not necessarily because they have specific cause to question the term.
Shaman, on the other hand, does have some problematic and offensive elements. Despite the word often being used to refer to religious leaders in tribal societies, it is not a word with origins in those cultures. It is a firmly English that arose out of a Russian word--which means the word itself is arguably forcing English-European etymology upon other cultures.
Second, there are longstanding issues with cultural misappropriation--individuals making depictions of what they think a tribal religion looks like, but instead giving a European spin on someone else's deeply held beliefs.
Third, there is the simplistic nature of the term--because it is a catch-all term that covers a large number of rather different religious leaders and faiths, it is a bit reductive. Some within those cultures find that rather dismissive and insulting--a linguistical way of saying "we do not care enough about your faith to learn the different words and will just assign our English-Russian word to you." For comparison, imagine if someone insisted on calling Rabbis or Imams "Priests" because they wanted to just lump the Abrahamic religions together--you can imagine that might be perceived rather poorly by those of the Jewish or Islamic faiths. That gives you a bit of an idea of how the folks within the cultures lumped together under a singular term might feel.
I think that should give you a bit of an idea of why the term Shaman specifically has some etymological bigotry/colonial history/dismissiveness built into it, and why Wizards might want to be careful with how it is used moving forward. If you want some more details, there is an entire "Criticisms of the Term" section on the Shaminism Wikipedia page (while Wikipedia is a pretty darn awful source, it links to actually useful sources, and those are all contained in one easy-to-find set of links).
And, as I said in my first post, I think they could go either way on this term--they could decide they are able to release perfectly respectful products using the term (I personally think they can do so), or they could decide "you know what, we negligently messed up a few things in D&D recently--maybe we do not trust ourselves.
Personally, I do not care what option they choose. If they manage to treat other cultures respectfully and continue to use the term, great. If they decide they do not trust themselves and use a new term? Does not really change my enjoyment of the game any. As long as they do not choose the option some folks on this thread seem to be advocating for--"do nothing, cross fingers, and pray we do not make the same stupid mistake we have already made multiple times"--I am fine with whatever the outcome might be.
October 18, 2023 10:39 p.m. Edited.
Caerwyn As always, I appreciate your insight and willingness to help.
Is there a preferred term for similar roles in the other cultures you're alluding to? I'm asking from a anthropological standpoint, not a game design one. If there's a more correct term than "shaman" other than learning the word for "religious leader" or "spiritual guide" in maybe a dozen languages, I'd like to be able to use it.
The majority of times I can think of that I've heard the word "shaman" in a real-world context, it has referred to the North and Central Asian region which seems to be the origin of the word, so I guess I haven't focused on it's casual generic use. I'm sure I've seen it used outside of that context, I just can't point to any specific time like I can with Mongolia and Eastern Russia.
October 19, 2023 12:51 a.m.
I should add that I've done a little bit of research into Tengriism as well, but it was all academic, no actual cultural contact. Maybe that's not super relevant, but it's kind of where I'm coming from. Fair amount of academic experience, not as much practical experience.
plakjekaas says... #2
I experience no dissatisfaction by terms for nature worshippers. I will be a little upset if nature worshippers get the shaft while, as you stated, other religious terms that are still used today, will stay. I think religion and the supernatural are too big a part of established fantasy settings to eliminate them, it probably would leave a big gap.
D&D has a serious gap as well, if this is WotC-wide.
I blame the QAnon Shaman, that's probably the only controversial use of the term I can think of.
October 6, 2023 6:50 p.m.