What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Justice and Rule]

Do you find D&D does this with other aspects within the game such as victims of murder, the family of those murdered, victims of theft, victims of arson, victims of betrayal, victims of brainwashing, victims of fire...etc?

Oh for the love of...

Why is it always the same slippery slope? Because there are so many bad things in the world that we cannot distinguish differences between them and thus must somehow ban all bad things. This argument is farcical and unserious: no one wants to ban those things because, in most instances, they come in places that seen as justified. And that's not to say you can't have those elements done badly and anger people because it's not hard, but people are often willing to overlook that stuff on its face with the right justification. Those don't exist for things like slavery and sexual assault.

Similarly, things like slavery and rape often disproportionately effect certain people and thus are more likely to make them specifically feel less welcome. This isn't an instance where anyone can have a phobia, but rather specific groups are going to feel uncomfortable because of these things.

Honestly, I feel all you're doing with your individual/culture exceptions, your genre exceptions and now this respect requirement is shifting goal posts with your criticism. I have no interest in discussing this topic within a sea of ever-changing parameters, exceptions and requirements.
I thought the pushback against controversial content, specifically slavery, was due to how recently slavery existed within US history and how it may affect black RPGers. This other stuff you're bringing up, to me, is frankly noise.

It's not a shifting goalpost, but part of the actual point: how it affects people of color is because the implementation of these things in a game are often shallow and cheap, being used as a tag for the players to know someone is evil. You're taking a horrifying practice that tore apart entire cultures in the real world and turning it into an optional sidequest. Honestly, in the Dark Sun thread someone pointed out how many times slavery was mentioned in Wizard books, but has any book looked at it as anything other than a side-detail? Because I can't think of any. And that's the point: it cheapens impact of the real thing as it never actually engages with it.

Seriously what are you going on about? I said inspired by a period of humanity's history. No one ever said that every species is a slaver? Also to note many of the D&D worlds have predominantly human populations in comparison to other species or at least are the dominant species (FR, Greyhawk, Mystara...etc) And many non-human species within D&D are or have been slavers. Some feast on intelligent life forms. Others use them for sport.

You're missing her point in your indignance: @Faolyn isn't talking about every species being a slaver, but rather that why should slavery be so widespread and used so often if this is meant to be fantasy, and why is slavery such a thing being consistently carried across as an "inspiration" from history compared to most other things when it's often relegated to being a completely trivial detail ("Oh hey, and smuggler also trades in slaves")?

We often don't carry over other details in history that would require a great deal of explanation: differences in languages, the limits on freedom of movement for people, taxation, etc... all these would almost certainly impact a setting and give flavor more than the current implementation of slavery in 5E, and yet they never get the same sort of defense.

The point is that something as incredibly impactful as slavery needs the same sort of explanation and understanding (if not moreso) and yet never gets it. That's what offends people: it's not part of the setting outside of an easy way to tell you how bad a bad guy is. It's never necessary except as cheap set-dressing. Now, if you make it not that, good on you but that's not what is being criticized here: people can handle such things much more easily in groups they know in a personal setting. And even if they didn't, there's only personal risk in that. It's not a major company meant to appeal to a large part of the audience and trying to be more welcoming to a more diverse audience.

 

[Kaodi]

Couple of thoughts.

Heck we see people comparing promoting inclusion to having crippling physical problems (peanut allergies) or phychological disorders (crippling phobias). And then complaining that authors might have their character impugned for producing works that are are exclusionary.

Given the relatively recent addition of rules meant to accommodate characters who have mobility issues I think perhaps it would be better to adjust your framing to recognize that "crippling physical issues" absolutely can be inclusion issue.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And you honestly see no problem here?

Not really. What are getting at?

 

[Micah Sweet]

1) So why aren't you arguing that linguistics, coinage, taxation, conscription, etc., be put into the official games?

2) Most people, AFAICT, consider linguistics, etc., to be either cool but unnecessary for the actual game, or just more info that will never be actually used in the game and will likely bore the players if it is used. Why is slavery, rape, et al different?

I would love to have those things put into WotC's products. It would give me hope that they care about worldbuilding. Consider me officially arguing for it.

 

[ilgatto]

In all my years of playing D&D I have met people of all kinds at many tables: from myself to others; from rich to poor; from morbidly shy to ravingly extrovert; from forgiving and easy-going to confrontational and contrary; from black to yellow, tan, red, white, blue (not kidding), pale, colored, and combinations of colors; from boys to girls, from men to women, from folks who were both, in between, to those who were or became either one or the other or both; from the challenged to the blatantly able; from folks who “just played the game” to those who actually mixed it with their real lives in all kinds of ways mental and… physical; from the saintly to the what I, at least, would consider to be the lowest of the low – in this respect, I will mention a wannabe Nazi to a father who had sexual relations of a decidedly questionable nature.

I ended up playing D&D on a regular basis with many of these people and I have come to know practically all of them as basically decent and reasonable folk, who respect each other and each other’s species, color, convictions, idiosyncrasies, likes, and dislikes, often to such an extent that they were never even an issue. Moreover, when people did engage in abject behavior or expressed unsavory opinions, these folks typically were and are prompt to confront the perpetrators to make it very clear their behavior or convictions were not tolerated.

This has made me believe that D&D (or any role-playing game) is probably the ultimate vehicle for expressing oneself without running the risk of being judged, ostracized, or worse. For isn’t it true that your PC is both you and not you at the same time?

In fact, I think that the game has helped many people to grow and better deal with issues and real life in many, many ways. It certainly has in my case and I remember many folks saying similar things on forums when EGG died.

I’m not saying that I have never seen D&D players suffer as a result of controversial content or aberrant behavior at a table – I have and have suffered myself – but I suppose the million dollar question is whether D&D is to blame.

I don’t think it is.

In my opinion, it is not so much controversial content or aberrant behavior at a gaming table that is the problem but rather how the people at that table deal with any problems that may arise because of it.

I therefore agree with some (parts) of what I've read upthread (e.g., here, here, here, here, here).

Historic publications should never be forgotten, burnt, swept under the carpet, glossed over, or edited for any reason. Au contraire, they should be consulted and heeded to give the beast that is humankind at least a chance to prevent the worst parts of history from repeating themselves.

There is nothing to say that people buying or using publications with controversial content always agree with said content – in fact, I can say with certainty that at least one of them doesn’t.

People should be free to play whatever game they like as long as their intent isn’t to hurt other people.


So should WotC revise old publications for D&D with controversial content? Not in my opinion.

Should WotC produce publications that contain controversial content? I think the future will tell us whether they do or don’t but, since they have now been informed that some content may offend people or worse, they probably won’t for a number of reasons.

Do you scrub your world of slavery and other historical crimes? If so, how do you encourage heroism? If not, what do you do to mitigate the real potential discomfort such subjects can cause? Do you make different decisions based on the specific game or setting? Do you run historical games, and if so do you "soften" history to make it palatable?

I like to base my games on themes both historic and fantastic so I do not scrub my world(s) of slavery and other historical crimes. I let my adventures and the players decide whether any heroism is called for.

I believe I know my players well enough to know where to draw the discomfort line and I trust them to speak up if I should go too far, which has happened once or twice and was usually based on a misunderstanding and always resolved to satisfaction.

I do not make different decisions based on a specific game or setting for any other reason than because I believe it will serve the purpose of the adventure and everybody having a good time.

I do not run historical games but if I would, I would not "soften" history to make it palatable, although I would avoid settings I consider unpalatable anyway, wherefore my choices would be limited.

In short, as far as I’m concerned, I will continue to play D&D and pick from publications as I see fit, typically in accordance with the wishes of all parties involved. Sometimes we will play heroic PCs and sometimes evil ones. Sometimes we will skirt controversy, we’ll usually avoid it. Sometimes we will intentionally walk the thin line between player and PC, usually we won’t.

But most importantly, we will continue playing D&D to celebrate our differences, not to vilify them.

 

[AnotherGuy]

1) So why aren't you arguing that linguistics, coinage, taxation, conscription, etc., be put into the official games?

2) Most people, AFAICT, consider linguistics, etc., to be either cool but unnecessary for the actual game, or just more info that will never be actually used in the game and will likely bore the players if it is used. Why is slavery, rape, et al different?

Good questions
(1) The issue of DS came up on these boards, which led to the slavery issue and then to this thread. Most persons in this thread are focused on slavery, torture, cannibalism, rape etc. Make a thread dealing with realism/authenticity and I will post there to
I would love to have these other items included within the DMG, just so as to inspire the newer generations of gamers to create different stories* or encounters than your typical BBEG-facing AP.

Linguistics and coinage could be vitally important clues within an investigation styled adventure.
What if a PC with the soldier background came across a person that had evaded conscription whose existence conflicted with the PC's Bonds/Ideals/Flaws? How would that social encounter play out? What if the party were bounty hunters, who found out that those they were sent to capture and return had evaded conscription during a past period of war with a neighbouring nation?
What if a noble who had a vendetta against the party and had influence with the tax arm of the government influenced the tax authorities to visit the adventurers along with several appraisers to ensure the party had complied with their tax obligation?

(2) Well rape is a horror that sadly still exists today so I feel it is on another level. Certainly there would need to be a warning on any published works that would include something like that. Not to say I want or need such material, but I think the freedom to create such content should exist (i.e. Tanis the Shadow Years) but given that teenagers or victims may be consuming the material it would need to be appropriately handled IMO.

The stuff I mentioned as well as many of the items mentioned by Cadence are too distant or not controversial enough for their to be a need for concern.

Cannibalism is so left field/odd that I do not think it gets much attention and no one even considers its.

Torture (which includes but is not limited to public flogging and other punishments) does exist today, I'm sure many PCs actually partake in it (as least imply the threat of it), because the end justifies the means when we are talking about saving the town, the city, the barony, the nation, the world, the cosmos...etc I guess it is what it is with that. As for torturing PCs or the witnessing of torture - it falls within a thesis's worth of mature territory.

Then there is the slavery issue - a hot topic within the US, less so I believe, within the rest of the world. I'm not going into the why's. It just so happens WotC and the largest playerbase exists within the US. So this conversation goes round and round here and I'm sure on other sites.
I'm happy for any published work wanting to deal with controversial issues to slap the "For Mature Audiences" on the front cover.


*EDIT - In Gaz1 (The Duchy of Karameikos) they include adventure ideas at the back of the book. One of them, for levels 1-3 if I recall correctly, had the party accompany 2 of the Duke's cartographers in their efforts to correct the current maps of this "new land". I thought that was a pretty interesting concept for an adventure. Made me want to learn more about cartography and how I could include that in an interesting way within the scope of the adventure (whether it was through social interaction with the cartographers, the difficulties of carrying their equipment or using it in hazardous terrain, weather being an obstacle...etc)

 

[MGibster]

It's funny; the indie game scene has been doing this forever, but because they do so from a perspective that many would dismiss as "woke" I guess that doesn't count.

The gravitational pull of D&D is so great that any general thread about RPGs will eventually turn into a discussion about it.

You can tell remarkable stories just using "safe for kids" material. You don't need to be edgy to be interesting.

Batman the Animated Series had an episode where Bruce Wayne wakes up with no memory of who he is in a forced labor camp. He eventually figures out who he is, escapes, and Batman frees all the enslaved people. Is that the kind of safe for kids material you mean?

CoS is a horror game, which is very different genre from the typical D&D genre. A game marketed as horror is going to have different elements in it than one marketed as heroic fantasy.

Curse of Strahd is still D&D and I still feel like the goalposts are being moved. Is it or is it not okay to include elements that might trigger someone or are problematic? The answer appears to be yes. I'll grant you that context matters, what's appropriate for D&D might not be appropriate for My Little Pony, but broadly speaking, yes, it's okay for problematic elements to be included in games. Right?

It isn't like anyone here speaks for the world at large.

I'm not asking anyone to speak for the world. If you say "It's okay" I'm going to assume you're speaking for yourself and not everyone else.

 

[MGibster]

And you honestly see no problem here?

You'll have to be more specific.

 

[mythago]

Can you provide specific examples in DnD where the people who included slavery in a DnD product have had their character impugned?

So is "impugn their character" now the euphemistic way of saying "calling them racist/sexist"? I keep seeing this specific phrase pop up around these issues.

Is it or is it not okay to include elements that might trigger someone or are problematic?

Steal Away Jordan, Night Witches, Grey Ranks, Hot Guys Making Out, just off the top of my head, are games that include and in some cases even center around 'problematic' and 'triggering' ideas. I am pretty sure their authors have not been run out of the TTRPG community by puritans yet.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So is "impugn their character" now the euphemistic way of saying "calling them racist/sexist"? I keep seeing this specific phrase pop up around these issues.



Steal Away Jordan, Night Witches, Grey Ranks, Hot Guys Making Out, just off the top of my head, are games that include and in some cases even center around 'problematic' and 'triggering' ideas. I am pretty sure their authors have not been run out of the TTRPG community by puritans yet.

None of them, I guess, are high profile enough for people to notice. I've certainly never heard of any of those games.