Card name change suggestion

self wrote:

And for the record, as a straight white dude, I'd like to see even more Inclusion with regard to race and sexuality. Representation matters, and there's a huge bloc of people who are willing to hand over cash for a game that makes it a point to include them. It's not just smart business, it's being kind to other people who love what we love.

Android: Netrunner was specifically doing this from jump. The number of minority and and female characters outnumbered the white males by a very large margin. And, to your point, it worked in helping appeal to those groups and made them excited about the game.

Ankha wrote:

Be careful when looking at the top result of google. They are certainly not a proof of anything, and can lead to a lot of racist content: theoutline.com/post/1430/google-finally-realized-that-racist-search-results-are-a-problem

Also, racism is about considering that some "races" (what an awful word when talking about humans) is superior to another. With Gypsy, we are talking about a pejorative connotation, ethnic slur if you want, but not racism.

The question was: Do Romani find usage of the word "gypsy" offensive? My answer is: Here's evidence that they do.

Ankha wrote:

I am sorry for them, but there is nothing I can do about it.

What, precisely, is keeping you from changing the name of the card?

I understand that the answer to this question may be "I can't tell you, due to the terms of the licensing agreement," but if that is not the answer, It seems like it's as simple as altering text in a handful files.

With the recent heat White Wolf has gotten over the release of V5, this seems like a super easy fix and a chance for the people to say "Look we fixed this awful thing!"

self wrote:

Ankha wrote:

I am sorry for them, but there is nothing I can do about it.

What, precisely, is keeping you from changing the name of the card?

I understand that the answer to this question may be "I can't tell you, due to the terms of the licensing agreement," but if that is not the answer, It seems like it's as simple as altering text in a handful files.

With the recent heat White Wolf has gotten over the release of V5, this seems like a super easy fix and a chance for the people to say "Look we fixed this awful thing!"

This is an issue which goes all the way back to 1st Edition Vampire: the Masquerade and how the Ravnos were originally portrayed, which was as "trickster gypsy thieves". They caught flak for it, as they should have, and later made significant changes to the clan in later editions, such as expanding their background to include India.

The cards from Jyhad and V:TES, however, remain. Gypsies, Rom Gypsy, and Tsigane (a another spelling of the slur "cigany") are still in the game. To my knowledge no newer cards from Final Nights and onward used such language, and I think this is consistent with the changes in later editions of V:tM. So at least in some way, the course correction to improve things in V:TES had already been made 17 years ago.

I think it's fair to take a look back on the content in the game and re-assess. I disagree with my colleague Vincent in that I don't think there is nothing we can do. I also do not think we should simply wait for enough Roma people to complain before taking action. We can certainly try to improve things without waiting for someone to complain. Sure, changing the text of the cards in a spreadsheet is meaningless when the printed cards are still out there. However, we can make the decision to not reprint those cards (we'd have to pay for new artwork anyway because of the artwork rights). We can reprint them with a different name (such as Raven/Camille Devereaux). We can wallpaper them by making a new versions with improvements (Gypsies and Rom Gypsy don't see play anyway). Maybe there are other options out there.

Is this going to happen right away? Well, I suppose we can start not reprinting them immediately. As for other options, I'll definitely put this issue on the list of things to tackle when it comes time to work on Independents again. Given that the VtM sourcebook roadmap is Camarilla and Anarchs in 2018 and Sabbat in 2019, I'm guessing we're not going to get around to Ravnos again until late 2019 at the earliest and quite possibly not until 2020.

Thank you, Ben, for acknowledging that there's improvement to be made. That's basically the heart the matter for me, and realistically, all I was asking for.

In my first response in this thread, I acknowledged that there was all kinds of awful, problematic stereotypes in the past of Vampire: The Masquerade. It'd be amazing if going forward White Wolf can make amends to the people who've had their culture portrayed in a disrespectful manner (Which isn't to say that there aren't skeletons in any given closet).

The acknowledgement of "hey, this thing happened in the twenty years ago, it wasn't really okay then, and it surely isn't okay now, so we're going in a different direction" is meaningful, and shows that y'all care about making this World of Darkness something everyone regardless of their circumstances can identify with.

edit: I'd argue that changing text in a spreadsheet is meaningful in that you're saying that this thing from the past isn't acceptable anymore. If it's ever asked "Hey, why did they change the name of "Gypsies" to "Romani Travelers?" the reply is "they felt it was racist and changed it." easy peasy.