Upon the release of their latest campaign for Dungeons & Dragons, Spelljammer: Adventures in Space, Wizards of the Coast released a bunch of new content, including some new playable races for players. Among this list were the Hadozee’s - a race of humanoid apes. This race was also known by the term “Deck Apes,” and they came with a backstory that was… ill-fitting, to say the least.

While I don’t intend to go into detail on what the Hadozee background was, there was a very negative response from the community to this race's details being revealed. This race was initially introduced back in 1982, but it wasn’t until this latest campaign that they were fully fleshed out. To summarize the original background they were given and why it wasn’t well received, it was very similar to the beginnings of the slave trade in our real world.

Wizards of the Coast have finally heard the outcries of their players and are working to get the Hadozee race updated with a less offensive backstory. Of course, with this being a game with 50 years of history, this never should have happened, but instead of just making the changes silently (which they started doing and it looked really sketchy, like they tried to hide it), they have released an official statement apologizing for their mistake. Here’s part of the statement:

“Regrettably, not all portions of the content relating to the Hadozee were properly vetted before appearing in our most recent release. As we continue to learn and grow through every situation, we recognize that to live our values, we have to do better.

Effective immediately, we will remove the offensive content about Hadozee in our digital versions – and these will no longer be included in future reprints of the book. Our priority is to make things right when we make mistakes. In addition, we’ve initiated a thorough internal review of the situation and will take the necessary actions as a result of that review.”

It is good to see they are owning up to their mistake and hopefully, they will be better about catching these blatantly problematic setups in the future. Now, it’s time to wait and see what corrective actions they end up making in response to their internal review.

You can read the full apology statement on the D&D Wizards of the Coast website.