“Races” are now “species” in the beloved game Dungeons & Dragons, which recently marked its 50th anniversary, irking some loyal fans.
“Some character traits have been divorced from biological identity; a mountain dwarf is no longer inherently brawny and durable, a high elf no longer intelligent and dexterous by definition,” a report in The New York Times explains. “And Wizards of the Coast, the Dungeons & Dragons publisher owned by Hasbro, has endorsed a trend throughout role-playing games in which players are empowered to halt the proceedings if they ever feel uncomfortable.”
The company also now suggests that extended Dungeons & Dragons campaigns begin with sessions allowing players to lay out their expectations and which topics they wish to avoid, which could include sexual assault or drug use, the Times writes.
“What they’re trying to do here is put up a signal flare, to not only current players but potential future players, that this game is a safe, inclusive, thoughtful and sensitive approach to fantasy storytelling,” said Ryan Lessard, a writer and frequent Dungeons & Dragons dungeon master, according to the report.
But some gamers are frustrated.
“It’s an unnecessary thing,” Robert J. Kuntz, an award-winning game designer who frequently collaborated with Gary Gygax, a co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, told the Times. “It attempts to play into something that I’m not sure is even worthy of addressing, as if the word ‘race’ is bad.”
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Wizards of the Coast executives defended the new rules by saying players desired greater leeway in creating their characters. But some have slammed the attempt at a more “inclusive” game that some argue comes at the expense of the game’s authenticity.
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In an X thread about the new Wizards of the Coast Players Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide that analyzed D&D’s origins in the 1970s, users blasted WoTC and Hasbro for distancing themselves from the game’s original creators due to their apparent insensitivites. The foreword claims the original role-playing game largely excluded women or portrayed them “disrespectfully,” and portrayed slavery “not as a human tragedy but as a commercial transaction.”
“Wizards of the woke,” one X user said in response to the passage.
X owner Elon Musk weighed in with an even blunter message.
“Nobody, and I mean nobody, gets to trash E. Gary Gygax and the geniuses who created Dungeons & Dragons,” he wrote. “What the f— is wrong with Hasbro and WoTC?? May they burn in hell.”
Musk also weighed in on a passage Babylon Bee editor Kyle Mann highlighted in which players in the game’s latest iteration are encouraged to signal if they are triggered by any of the game’s content.
“Wtf,” Musk simply replied.
Fox News Digital reached out to Hasbro for comment.
Mark Kern, a former team lead of “World of Warcraft,” recently weighed in on how the video game industry and entertainment at large cater to progressive views in their content in exchange for access to money. One consultant agency, Sweet Baby Inc., for instance, described itself as an “inclusion-focused narrative and consultation company” working toward “diversifying and enriching the video games industry.”
“There is a coordinated effort to insert diversity politics into games by ALL parties involved to the detriment of the quality of the games themselves. Sweet Baby’s Inc.’s very public and self published involvement is just the tip of the iceberg,” Kern told Fox News Digital.
Fox News Digital’s Alexander Hall contributed to this report.
