D&D commits to have all its books reviewed by cultural consultants

Wizards of the Coast commits to engaging with cultural consultants on every one of its Dungeons & Dragons releases going forward. This announcement is part of the most recent batch of Errata. Spelljammer – Adventures in SpaceThe Campaign Book, which was published in August and caused a public uproar because it contained racist material.

The blog post, written by Wizards’ game design architect Christopher Perkins, states in no uncertain terms that the studio’s new review process “mandates that every word, illustration, and map must be reviewed by multiple outside cultural consultants prior to publication.” The so-called “inclusion-review process” will take place at multiple points during the development of a product — including during the final assembly, when art and text will be reviewed side by side.

“The new inclusion-review process applies to not only products in development but also reprints,” Perkins said. “In other words, every reprint is an opportunity to conduct a new inclusion review on previously published content.”

Cultural consultants, who are specialists on particular cultures, are frequently used to vet materials in all forms of media, including film, television, comics, books, videos, games and board games. Such experts have featured prominently in the credits of past D&D books, including this year’s hit adventure anthology, The Radiant Citadel: Journeys — which is, ironically enough, the first D&D book conceived of an executed exclusively by writers of color.

The credits do not include any cultural experts. Spelljammer, an oversight that Wizards said lead directly to this summer’s incident in which racist text and art were included in that product. Numerous changes have indeed been made. SpelljammerIt has been since its original release. This latest batch also includes several changes to the creatures in order to reduce their racially inclined towards greed and avariciousness.

It will be released in its next version Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon QueenWizards embraces its digital future and sells the book together with its digital counterpart. It seems that digital material will become a more living, evolving document in the future. Case in point: All of the changes mentioned in today’s errata have already been implemented online in D&D Beyond.

Thursday’s announcement was made against the backdrop of a nasty lawsuit being fought between Wizards and the newly resurrected TSR, an entity which Wizards bought in 1997. The Seattle-based publisher recently requested an injunction against TSR citing what it calls “despicable” and “blatantly racist and transphobic” content that, if released, could damage the D&D brand. This case, which is currently in discovery, will go to trial on October 2023.