Thread by @Delafina777, I feel like also, what doesn't really get highlighted publicly, is that [...]

I feel like also, what doesn't really get highlighted publicly, is that while a lot of talented people have come into the industry in the past 20 years, the people in *charge* at the big TTRPG companies are still the same. https://twitter.com/bleongambetta/status/1273295940288417793

https://twitter.com/bleongambetta/status/1273295940288417793

And if you're someone newer to a company/franchise, and you find something racist (or transphobic, or antisemitic, or misogynist, or homophobic, or ableist) in earlier publications of your game, and you want to fix it...

...the people who have to approve your fix are usually the same people who wrote the TTRPG product containing the racist/etc. thing in the first place, and in many cases, are still *very proud of their work.*

Not necessarily the problematic parts, but the thing as a whole.

And telling them "this thing has a racist stereotype in it", unless you thread that needle with the *perfect balance* of pushing and diplomacy, gets the same sort of doubling down we see everywhere else when people have racist behavior pointed out to them.

So you end up, if you're younger
newer
female
trans
BIPOC
Jewish
Muslim
disabled
(I'm deliberately leaving out "gay" here because there actually are a decent among of gay and bi white cis men among the elder generation of TTRPG creators)

...

...forced to settle for gentle, incremental change that has to be made--and talked about!--in a way that doesn't offend the guy who wrote the thing with the racist bit in the first place, because he's sitting right there and gets to approve it before it gets published.

And what that means is that most of what's even *possible* without getting vetoed is *very* incremental change, and if anything is said about it publicly, it has to be a vague, usually passive-voice, statement about how "in the past, some bad things appeared in our products"

And my frustration with most of the discourse around An RPG Company Did A Racism (or a LOT of them) is that either it treats the company as monolithic (don't criticize this brand or you're criticizing the POC there) or wants to call out whoever Bob Gamer thinks is responsible...

...which in most cases is wrong.

And job titles aren't necessarily even helpful there, because the brand manager or executive producer, who on paper has authority over what gets published, and who may be a woman and/or a POC, has to bite their tongue because...

...someone who wrote the thing in 1988 is still there. And now they're an art director. And no one outside the company will ever know that the thing this racist trope is part of is still their baby.

So it doesn't get changed, or it does, but not sweepingly, and it DEFINITELY never gets admitted to or directly addressed.

(Unlike with harassment, the reason for not admitting to racist depictions usually isn't actually any sort of legal culpability, as people keep suggesting--it's literally ego.)

So, "don't call out the company for something racist they published 20 years ago" is playing precisely into the "we apologize, but no one did this, that racist text just somehow snuck into the stuff we published by itself" handwaving any actual acknowledgment usually involves.

You absolutely *should* criticize companies for the racist shit in their products that they've never acknowledged is bad, for a number of reasons:

1) The workings of most TTRPG companies are arcane as fuck, who has say over stuff often *doesn't* map to job titles or formal government hierarchies.

If you're outside, you don't actually *know* who's actually capable of making the call or pulling the brake.

2) It doesn't matter if it was 20 years ago if, when called on it, they're still refusing to acknowledge it (and if it's still controlling what THEY think they can change...

...e.g., I got eye-rolled out of the room at Paizo when I said we shouldn't be using "race" to describe diff *species*, because Tradition).

3) In many cases the people who made that call 20 years ago are still in charge, and are largely resisting efforts of newer employees to change things. Or are theoretically supportive of change, but not if it's of the thing *they* wrote that they're proud of.

4) You actually want to effect change in the industry, but don't work at a TTRPG company?

Fucking take a moment and go educate yourself about the radical flank effect.

Because I have almost never seen Old Guard TTRPG people (with a few shining exceptions) change their minds on this stuff without public pressure.

But public pressure alone isn't usually enough, because then it just becomes Asshole Gamers On The Internet Being Assholes.

And given how much time, when you're a dev, you spend with people screaming for someone to be fired, and possibly publicly beaten, because the Emerald Vorpal Sword is OP or because Zolaya's tattoo is green not blue, it's often hard to discern signal among the noise.

So when shit actually gets changed, it's almost always because:

A) an internal person said "we should change this"
B) they get ignored or shot down
C) there's a public outcry
...

D) the internal person handles it perfectly, and instead of being like "I told you so" is like "ooh, hey, I'm on your side, management, and I think I know how to help"
E) the internal person does it in a way that lets management think it was their idea to realize & act

And it's

FUCKING EXHAUSTING

but it does have results

(it often also involves non-employee friends of people in management being gently like, yeah, the internet is assholes but they might *kinda* have a point)

In order to pull that off, though, a very important pincer needs to be in place:

public pressure

+

an internal person who's not afraid to agree with the public

Because if you're an internal person saying "hey we need to change this thing that's a big part of the setting, or has Tradition behind it, or whatever" and there's no public outcry about the same thing, you usually get dismissed.

At the same time, employees are usually afraid to agree, even a little, or even to say, "hey, I understand what they're saying and I know what to do to respond" with a mob executives/management feel like is attacking them

for, y'know, understandable reasons

So, by saying "don't criticize what this company does because POC/women/LGBT people/etc. work there" you're depriving them of the wall they need to gently pin management against

And if you're internal and want to make that change, you have to look at public pushback as something that you can potentially use as the other half of the pincer

but the temptation is to silently agree but not say anything because you don't want to be associated with them

And it's a difficult dance, because as an internal person you can't directly communicate with people doing the internet pushback, so it's hard to coordinate.

But the only way I've seen shit get done is when both public and private channels were being worked.

So, in sum:

Yes, DO criticize companies that have done racist/misogynist/etc. products they've never acknowledged, even if it was 20 years ago.

DON'T go after individual employees (unless they're the CEO/exec), because you don't actually *know* who has power to change stuff.

(And again, I'm talking about the actual *products they've published*, not harassment/etc., which is different and has to be handled differently.)

And I don't know why I'm fucking bothering since 99% of even "progressive" gamers have never cared about what's actually effective versus what feels good, and aren't interested in stepping back and trying to discern what the system even looks like, ironically.

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