What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[Alzrius]

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

I suspect that there are several answers to this, one of which is that some people have largely lost hope for more things related to world-building and "simulationism" (to use a loaded term) given how much WotC has moved away from these things over the last several years. Personally, I think that's a shame, because I still recall how much things like Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue (affiliate link) helped to flesh out worldbuilding and make a campaign setting feel more alive. When most "settings" are little more than a single location, maybe with a bit of background and some new monsters, you start to lose hope that you'll ever see more.

Another reason, I think, is that a lot of players (especially newer/younger players whom a lot of people keep touting are being brought into the game) don't really have any conception of how useful these things can be. I see a lot of players who come into D&D from things like Skyrim or Final Fantasy, where the "world-building" that isn't directly relevant to the plot of the adventure gets put into what I call "packets" (i.e. textual findings which you can stop and read, and which seem to be presented in a way that distracts from game-play rather than adds to it). To that end, they tend to disregard "window dressing" as taking away from the exploits of the PCs.

While I can understand that view, I find it limiting; you can make the world engaging by fleshing it out more, and a lot rests on how official material makes it clear that these things enhance a game, rather than being distractions. (This is much in keeping with the loss of D&D's endgame, where domain rulership is the natural extension of dungeon-raiding and clearing a dangerous wilderness. The game did a bad job explaining how this was a shift to a new type of adventuring, rather than an end to it, and there's a similar problem with other aspects of fleshing out a game world.)

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?

It's not. This viewpoint, as I see it, is an issue of how to turn "extraneous" material into more than just flavor text which the players' eyes glaze over at. While I won't go so far as to call this a "problem" unto itself, simply because this lends itself more to certain play-styles than others, and certain people prefer certain play-styles, I think it's hard to deny that certain modes of play are being starved for options in terms of the official materials, and this falls under that category. In that regard, while there are certainly people who don't care for much beyond their own character's exploits, I suspect that there are a lot of players who'd be quite happy to engage with a much more dynamic, detailed world. It's no coincidence (I think) that the Forgotten Realms was the single most fleshed-out campaign setting TSR produced, and is now the flagship setting for D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I suspect that there are several answers to this, one of which is that some people have largely lost hope for more things related to world-building and "simulationism" (to use a loaded term) given how much WotC has moved away from these things over the last several years. Personally, I think that's a shame, because I still recall how much things like Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue (affiliate link) helped to flesh out worldbuilding and make a campaign setting feel more alive. When most "settings" are little more than a single location, maybe with a bit of background and some new monsters, you start to lose hope that you'll ever see more.

Another reason, I think, is that a lot of players (especially newer/younger players whom a lot of people keep touting are being brought into the game) don't really have any conception of how useful these things can be. I see a lot of players who come into D&D from things like Skyrim or Final Fantasy, where the "world-building" that isn't directly relevant to the plot of the adventure gets put into what I call "packets" (i.e. textual findings which you can stop and read, and which seem to be presented in a way that distracts from game-play rather than adds to it). To that end, they tend to disregard "window dressing" as taking away from the exploits of the PCs.

While I can understand that view, I find it limiting; you can make the world engaging by fleshing it out more, and a lot rests on how official material makes it clear that these things enhance a game, rather than being distractions. (This is much in keeping with the loss of D&D's endgame, where domain rulership is the natural extension of dungeon-raiding and clearing a dangerous wilderness. The game did a bad job explaining how this was a shift to a new type of adventuring, rather than an end to it, and there's a similar problem with other aspects of fleshing out a game world.

It's not. This viewpoint, as I see it, is an issue of how to turn "extraneous" material into more than just flavor text which the players' eyes glaze over at. While I won't go so far as to call this a "problem" unto itself, simply because this lends itself more to certain play-styles than others, and certain people prefer certain play-styles, I think it's hard to deny that certain modes of play are being starved for options in terms of the official materials, and this falls under that category. In that regard, while there are certainly people who don't care for much beyond their own character's exploits, I suspect that there are a lot of players who'd be quite happy to engage with a much more dynamic, detailed world. It's no coincidence (I think) that the Forgotten Realms was the single most fleshed-out campaign setting TSR produced, and is now the flagship setting for D&D.

Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog is one my top five favorite RPG supplements precisely because it added so very, very much to the setting, and really promoted a simulationist point of view that has since fallen out of fashion.

 

[AnotherGuy]

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.



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.



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.

No thanks too much effort for no meaningful reward. I believe I have explained my reasons within this thread and other threads where I stand and why I feel that way. I don't expect everyone to agree with my position.
What I do find interesting is that I did leave an open question for myself and others to answer and yet not one person attempted to answer it - instead it was all about "How could/dare you with the slavery?". I'm passed that convo at this stage. I'm not looking to score points.

 

[Bedrockgames]

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.

It is worth pointing out that being labeled exclusionary is a very big deal though. Like I said this doesn't just affect a person's RPG book they put out. It can impact their ability to earn a living. And a lot of what we are talking about is very foggy, and people are concerned because these kinds of labels get thrown at people, in a way that often feels like its more about optics than the reality of what has happened.

I don't think anyone here is saying they want to be exclusionary. There is a big difference between someone making a game that actively excludes certain people from playing, and making a game with grim content like slavery or gripping physical disabilities in it. I have plenty of crippling physical problems myself. I've been disabled by crohns disease and ensuing fistulas. I am not in a wheelchair or anything like that, but I have significant limitations on my ability to do physical things I enjoy and that I need to do for getting by (getting an onsite job is extremely difficult for me for instance). I was a very active person physically when it happened so it had a pretty profound effect on me psychologically as well (and I have spoken here and elsewhere about the very PTSD I suffered from the rounds of surgery I had to go through---which has informed my thinking about things like trigger warnings in RPGS---I don't think they help).

I think the comparisons to these things and gaming are very imperfect to what is being talked about. However I think they were actually brought up by someone making the case for limiting content that might offend people (I could be wrong but the first post I saw mentioning allergens had to do with that). But to bring it back to the hobby, I wouldn't want to take away things from the design table like characters becoming physically disabled through combat (this is actually something I've explored in design as a way of dealing with some of the things that have happened to me).

Now one person with a disability might see a mechanic for that and feel its exclusionary, while another will find it inclusive (and another might find it neither). The groups you are talking about including or excluding are not monolithic. You might be surprised at what sorts of tropes they want included in different settings. Now if D&D wants to play it safe and avoid anything that could potentially be seen particular way, fair enough, but should all these things be taken off the table? One of my favorite wuxia movies is the one armed swordsman and it is because it resonates with me. I very much can understand a character that was at a physical peak and had that taken away suddenly, and I enjoy watching the character overcome that over the course of the movie.

There are also lots of ways to handle disabilities in games, and I kind of want them all in play. One way is to make it a non-issue, the characters can overcome them through magic, tech, etc. But another way is for the disabilities to have weight. Overcoming your disability and being subject to the limitations it places on you are both realities, so I think both have value in a game. I don't think it is exclusionary for a designer or publisher to pursue either approach. People are simply going to disagree over that, so labeling someone exclusionary because they found something interesting and included it in a game, seems like an innacurate description of what is going on.

 

[mythago]

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

So can we agree that the problem isn't that the Character-Impugning Mob is frightening TTRPG publishers away from putting 'controversial' elements in games? There are a lot of these games out there.

 

[Justice and Rule]

No thanks. I believe I have explained my reasons within this thread and other threads where I stand and why I feel that way. I don't expect everyone to agree with my position.
What I do find interesting is that I did leave an open question for myself and others to answer and yet not one person attempted to answer it - instead it was all about "How could/dare you with the slavery?". I'm passed that convo at this stage. I'm not looking to score points.

I don't think anyone has said "How dare you" at all. Instead it's much more

Everyone is in a hurry to defend the inclusion of slavery, but fewer people seem to really seem to justify it beyond the idea of "it's common in history" and "we don't shy away from hard topics", which don't really answer any of that. Again, in most stuff slavery is barely developed or commented upon outside of as side dressing to something.

And as to your open question: you go as far as you feel you need to. It's not an original or new question, but one that constantly gets answered and no one acknowledges it. Like, yes, these things are largely contextual and thus trying to put out hard boundaries is utterly foolish because they are all dependent on the exact details. Instead, people keep going to the same damn slippery slope like it's unanswerable when it's not, but rather it takes a bit of common sense.

 

[Lanefan]

You can do, say, or create anything you want at your table. I don't think anyone is saying otherwise.

Agreed.

But the official books? It's easier to add the darkness than it is to remove it.

As I've brought up elsewhere around other issues, opt-in (where something's not included but can be added) generally gets far less uptake than opt-out (where something's included but can be removed); mostly due to people simply taking the path of least effort/resistance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So can we agree that the problem isn't that the Character-Impugning Mob is frightening TTRPG publishers away from putting 'controversial' elements in games? There are a lot of these games out there.

It's certainly capable of frightening away high profile creators.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Everyone is in a hurry to defend the inclusion of slavery, but fewer people seem to really seem to justify it beyond the idea of "it's common in history" and "we don't shy away from hard topics", which don't really answer any of that. Again, in most stuff slavery is barely developed or commented upon outside of as side dressing to something.

It is a fair question but I do feel it has been answered in more ways than 'it's common in history' and 'we don't shy away from hard topics'. For me it is a very setting specific thing. Not all settings need something like this in it. A setting meant to evoke parts of the ancient world? They might need it. A setting like dark sun where the cruelty of a harsh and resource limited plenty are key parts of the setting, one that draws heavily on sword and sandal....I can definitely see how it adds to it. Dark Sun definitely seems like it loses something if you take away the slavery element. That won't be the case for most other D&D settings. Spartacus is a legitimate campaign premise for instance. Slavers are a very credible threat to throw at a party (I always find I react much more strongly if I know we are being attacked by slavers instead of say bandits because my character could end up fighting in the pits or working salt mines). Again, I don't think they are for ever setting, I don't think they are for everyone. And I certainly think there is no reason to be a jerk about it if you are including it or you are running a setting that has it (If I have a player at my table who has issues with it, I'm not going to be cruel to them and say 'find another game', I'll work with them). In general I think the less cruel we are overall to one another in these conversations the better (a lot of what I am reacting to when I say things have become too puritanical is some of the cruelty I feel I am perceiving).

 

[Jd Smith1]

Not who you're responding to, but. I tried to read the books. Got through the first one and the only reason I didn't throw it in the trash was because it was a library book. Raping a 13-year-old girl 'till she liked it is a sickening and insulting trope.

But here's the other thing. You want your games to seem "weighty and authentic," "warts and all," so how does a player know that they aren't going to be subjected to those horrible things?

Warts and all was my line-do not attribute it to others.

As to the player, they don't. Save the last bullet for themselves, is always a good idea. Personally, I don't see how you could play a game in which combat was a frequent factor and players not have a justified fear of being taken alive.