As a Designer forethought is a powerful tool that enables us to have a wider range of influence on social and environmental issues within the areas we work for. Our occupation already requires an immense amount of careful planning and execution when it comes to the products we work with, the environments we shape, and the people that interact with us or your work. However with the inclusion of extra forethought into our processes that relate to possible social impacts as well as thinking about where our products end up after their purpose is fulfilled, we will be able to see that it only benefits us all.
In this post I’ll be focusing on Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) and their popular role playing game Dungeons & Dragons. In light of the BLM protest that began in May of 2020 Wizards of the Coast had finally made moves in the summer of 2020 to amend racial issues that had plagued the game over its long history of nearly 50 years. One of the most prominent and important features of Dungeons & Dragons is it’s character creation. Allowing you to create a character that is human, an elf, or even something entirely different like a talking possessed handbag or a mythical creature. Generally speaking it is up to the player to make their character good or evil or even neither of those things. Unfortunately some of the characters and races outlined within previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons were depicted in wicked and villainous ways, some races even being described as “inherently evil.”
“It is this thing lurking under the surface that really is painful for people who have faced those sorts of stereotypes in the real world,” says Jeremy Crawford, the principal rules designer for D&D.
Well this concept may not seem harmful to many white enthusiasts of the fantasy genre, often race division is an ingrained element of conflict used in fantasy story telling. This notion or idea has been around in fantasy styled games for quite some as the genre itself rose to popularity. However many POC folks, especially black and brown people who have faced racism and prejudice aren’t as willing to embrace the fantasy genre or join a Dungeons & Dragons campaign because this writing was originally flawed and didn’t promote a space of refuge for POC peoples. Especially since one of the first things you do in Dungeons & Dragons is create a character. Players had previously made comments about this before the recent protest but WOTC finally made the change during the summer of 2020. Along with a revision of these descriptions WOTC is working on having a more diverse roster of writers and creatives in teams throughout all their departments, especially Dungeons & Dragons.
Having forethought about the way you present your product through a variety of social lenses can have an immense impact on whether or not your product or design is embraced by people or if your product reinforces harmful social narratives. This issue specifically also ties into the importance of workplace diversity which can improve design consciousness and further our ability to use forethought in our practice.
