Unearthed Arcana WotC Removes Latest Unearthed Arcana

WotC has removed this week's Unearthed Arcana from its website. Not only has the article's web page itself been removed, the actual PDF has been replaced with last month's "Subclasses, Part 1" PDF (although it's URL still reads... /UA2020-Subclasses02.pdf).

The article included three new subclasses, the bardic College of Creation, the cleric's Love Domain, and the sorcerer's Clockwork Soul.

[NOTE - NSFW language follows].

I don't know if it's linked, but WotC came under criticism on Twitter for its treatment of the Love Domain. The main argument isn't that mind-control magic has no place in the game, but rather that coercive powers should not be described as "love", and that the domain might be poorly named.

People like game designer Emmy Allen commented: "It seems WotC have tried to create a 'Love' domain for clerics in 5e. By some sheer coincidence they seem to have accidentally created a 'roofie' domain instead. Nothing says 'love' like overriding your target's free will to bring them under your power."


That domain was introduced as follows: "Love exists in many forms—compassion, infatuation, friendly affection, and passionate love as a few facets. Whatever form these feelings take, the gods of love deepen the bonds between individuals."

The powers were Eboldening Bond, Impulsive Infatuation ("Overwhelm a creature with a flash of short-lived by intense admiration for you, driving them to rash action in your defense”), Protective Bond, and Enduring Unity.

Whether the criticism was a factor in the article's withdrawal, I don't know. It might be that it just wasn't ready for prime-time yet. It seems the domain itself would be better named a "control" or "charm" domain than a "love" domain, which seems to be the main thrust of the criticism on Twitter.

WotC's Jeremy Crawford commented: "The official version of the Unearthed Arcana article “Subclasses, Part 2” is still ahead of us, later this week or sometime next week. Our team will hold off on answering questions until you’ve seen the real deal!"

 

[Bolares]

Trending and high interaction sure.... but that's not what you said. None of those was trying to force a change. This is a straw man.

 

[Mournblade94]

Appeal to authority is your play?

So... you are perfect, then? You do it every day, and so you can't occasionally flub it? Because, like, folks who do construction contracting for a living cannot do a shoddy job on a home improvement now and then?



And if enough people (in the target market) have an issue with an aspect of the game, the game should not feature that. And the number of folks who have suffered assault and emotional abuse in the name of "love" is not small.

This is a tiny little aspect - one spell and a power on one cleric domain, by report. Fixing, or leaving out, that domain is not a significant harm or limitation to the rest of the community.

Enough with the hyperbole. I still disagree with what you say and I was not implying I'm perfect. I'm sure I just committed some other wikipedia philosophy term in this reply as well so feel free to point it out.

 

[Salthorae]

None of those was trying to force a change. This is a straw man.

The entire point of posting things like that on social media is to get interaction and corporate eyes on those opinions in order to generate a response from the company.

There is no point in posting things like that if you're NOT trying to get the company to make a change to something you see as problematic.

Anyway... whatever.

The changes have been made. I'm done here. Enjoy the Unity Domain.

 

[Panda-s1]

The fact that I was able to find those 4 in a 30 second twitter search because they were at the top of the results indicates trending and therefore high interaction.

again, what in those tweets is indicative of "pummeling"?

Could be. I have no way to know, and without explicit statements from those people, neither do you.

What I see is a company that intended to publish something thematic for Valentine's day and they then pulled it out and changed only those parts that were related to people's exaggerated and kneejerk social media posts of one ability that does things that many other classes and abilities already do, force another character to do something.

man it's like we can infer peoples' thoughts and ideas through previous statements and interactions O: if anything they probably feel like they dodged a bullet by not releasing later and having the obvious link between the love domain and valentine's day.

My problem is the rapidity with which it occurred, and that it was pulled down at all.

I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt about the cause of the pulldown until when it was re-posted, the only things that were changed were those associated with the social media backlash.

The domain as originally published should have had a chance to go through a normal play test cycle rather than what happened here.

clearly the designers think otherwise. I'm sure for every UA article we get to see there's a dozen that never see the light of day. and they even took the opportunity to improve clockwork soul, I'm not sure what explicit benefit they're losing out on if they're making changes all around.

 

[Bolares]

There is no point in posting things like that if you're NOT trying to get the company to make a change to something you see as problematic.

The changes have been made. I'm done here. Enjoy the Unity Domain.

There is the point of sharing your opinion... giving fair criticism, reviewing playtest material...

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, I would say you did: "The complaint that was made was that giving something called the “love domain” mind control powers had unfortunate implications." So I presume you take that seriously and agree. So why does it have unfortunate implications? Why is it bothersome for "Love" to be associated with "Mind Control"?

(Note, I'm not at all arguing that it isn't or even telling you what to believe, just asking you to take seriously your own claim.)

It seems like when you say “take seriously your own claim” you are suggesting that I extrapolate from the claim I am actually making to something further reaching and extreme. When I say that “giving something called the ‘love domain’ mind control has unfortunate implications” I mean no more and no less than exactly that. I certainly don’t mean that charm spells should be cordoned off into an evil supplement, and if that’s what you’re taking from the claim, it is you who is not taking the claim seriously, instead trying to distort it into a far less reasonable claim using fallacious logic.

As for why the association of love and mind control is bothersome, it’s because of the implication that love does not require mutual informed consent to be legitimate.

I didn't shift the goal posts at all. In Star Wars, the "Light Side" is implied to be associated with Good and heroic individuals. Likewise, the Love domain was implied to be associated with goodness. If it is problematic for the Love domain to be associated with mind control, because it implies mind control is good, why isn't it equally problematic for the the Light Side to be associated with mind control? Doesn't that have the same unfortunate implications?

You are shifting the goalposts, by reframing the conversation to be about good and evil, rather than love and consent (or lack thereof). The issue with the love domain having mind control powers is not that love is good and mind control is evil, it’s that love is a two-way street and mind control removes one party’s ability to meaningfully participate. Shifting the conversation form D&D to Star Wars only serves to obfuscate the sleight of hand you’re doing here (whether intentionally or not - I’m happy to extend the benefit of the doubt and assume it was not intentional.)

I've seen both documents, and they didn't change the original domain. Based on the scale of the changes, I'm pretty sure they outright replaced the domain with another concept that had been under development.

Whatever they did, it removed the iffy implication.

As a point of actual fact, I already would require a Jedi that used a Jedi mind trick to gain a Dark Side point, because it in my opinion is a Dark Side power. There is no slippery slope fallacy here. I want people to start taking seriously the argument here, to refine it, to consider the underlying philosophy behind the claim, and to start applying the logic behind it.

I don’t disagree that Jedi mind tricks should be considered a dark side power, it’s just a non-sequitur to the argument at hand in this thread.

 

[Umbran]

this isn't criticism, it's raving of the twitter mob.

Mod Note:

You were gently warned against insulting people previously in this thread. Apparently, that wasn't sufficient.

They disagree with you. They feel strongly about it. If you can't handle that without insulting the people, you should leave the discussion now.

 

[Horwath]

Your problem is the technical method through which feedback was given? I mean, I'm sorry you're not happy about that, but... does it even matter?

Problem is that feedback was not given for mechanical aspects of the game, rather a reaction to having words "love" in the same context as charm person or Impulsive Infatuation. Therefore = rape.

they just repeat:
it's eww
it's yuck,
it is taking away agency,
it is taking away consent,

well, of course it does.
It's mind control, it's purpose it to control other people minds. And to make them do things that they would not do anyway.


And guess what, real love does that to you also.

How many stupid, idiotic and maybe sometimes illegal thing did we do in our lives because we were "head over heels" in love?


And domain was perfectly fine in theme because all abilities and bonus spells(except Hold monster, don't know how that crept in), are some manifestation of love.
The source of love just isn't real but magical/divine.

and majority of the domain is protection based. As you would protect a person that you are in love with.

And for "charm" part, it just represents how easy a person can be manipulated from the side of the person the they love/adore.

 

[Celebrim]

It seems like when you say “take seriously your own claim” you are suggesting that I extrapolate from the claim I am actually making to something further reaching and extreme. When I say that “giving something called the ‘love domain’ mind control has unfortunate implications” I mean no more and no less than exactly that....As for why the association of love and mind control is bothersome, it’s because of the implication that love does not require mutual informed consent to be legitimate.

Gotcha.

Love doesn't require mutually informed consent to be legitimate. SEX requires mutually informed consent to be legitimate. But Love and Sex are bloody well not the same thing. You switched in your head claims about Love, with claims about Sex - completely changing the nature of the thing being discussed - in the space of just a few sentences, and I'm pretty sure you didn't even consciously realize it.

Love doesn't have anything to do with "mutually informed consent". I don't have to have someone's consent to feel love toward them, and within certain parameters I don't need their consent to engage in acts of love toward them. For example, when someone is unconscious it is perfectly appropriate for me to engage in acts of love toward them, but when someone is unconscious it is entirely inappropriate for me to engage in acts of sex with them.

It's precisely that sort of confusion that I was trying to get people to recognize.

Now, would you like to back up and try again why "The complaint that was made was that giving something called the “love domain” mind control powers had unfortunate implications.", and answer in a way that doesn't confuse love and sex and equate them?

You are shifting the goalposts, by reframing the conversation to be about good and evil...

IF I am, and a protest quite strongly that I'm not, it's far smaller of a shifting goal post than to have a conversation about Love and shift immediately to the idea that it is about Sex. That sleight of hand is far more egregious than anything I've done.

 

[Charlaquin]

Gotcha.

Love doesn't require mutually informed consent to be legitimate. SEX requires mutually informed consent to be legitimate. But Love and Sex are bloody well not the same thing. You switched in your head claims about Love, with claims about Sex - completely changing the nature of the thing being discussed - in the space of just a few sentences, and I'm pretty sure you didn't even consciously realize it.

I was well aware that mutually informed consent is generally spoken of in reference to sex rather than love, and that you might mistake the similarly for conflation. I stand by what I said.

Love doesn't have anything to do with "mutually informed consent". I don't have to have someone's consent to feel love toward them,

Depends on your definition of love. You don’t need someone’s consent to be romantically attracted to them. Is that love? I wouldn’t say so, as it is one-sided.

and within certain parameters I don't need their consent to engage in acts of love toward them. For example, when someone is unconscious it is perfectly appropriate for me to engage in acts of love toward them,

Woah, now. Maybe define “acts of love” before claiming it’s perfectly appropriate to engage in such acts towards an unconscious person? For my part, I wouldn’t say love is something one “engages in acts of.”

but when someone is unconscious it is entirely inappropriate for me to engage in acts of sex with them.

It's precisely that sort of confusion that I was trying to get people to recognize.

By complaining about WotC making changes to their material in response to critique on Twitter? Interesting strategy...

Now, would you like to back up and try again why "The complaint that was made was that giving something called the “love domain” mind control powers had unfortunate implications.", and answer in a way that doesn't confuse love and sex and equate them?

Nope. I stand by what I said.

IF I am, and a protest quite strongly that I'm not, it's far smaller of a shifting goal post than to have a conversation about Love and shift immediately to the idea that it is about Sex. That sleight of hand is far more egregious than anything I've done.

I’m not suggesting it’s about sex. Sex is not the only thing that requires consent.