What We Lose When We Eliminate Controversial Content

[HectorsNemesis]

The series includes sexual assault, forced labor, racial epithets, and eating disorders. So it's probably safe.

Look at the flowers Lizzie.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Heh. I’ve only played one Dark Sun campaign.

Slavery afaik wasn’t mentioned at all. It certainly did t stand out if it was mentioned.

Every GM is going to focus on different things in a setting. But it isn't a small detail of Dark Sun. I am reading the Guide to Athas from the original boxed set and the word slave is mentioned 51 times. And it is pretty woven into the setting if you read through it. You can do it without it. But I would say will be missing a crucial element that gets into things like gladiators, slave pits, escaped slave tribes and slave villages (places like Salt View), etc. It is a pretty important part of the how societies are structured in Dark Sun too. I don't think it would be odd to run a campaign where things like this never came up, but it feels like it would be a real retooling of the setting to remove slavery from the setting itself.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Look at the flowers Lizzie.

That was probably the jumping of the shark grim dark for a lot of viewers. I remember not being particularly troubled by it, but I do remember a lot of fans being infuriated when this happened.

 

[MGibster]

You possibly missed my point.

The people are toxic. The game doesn't have to include information that would help to bolster that toxicity.

I get it. We just fundamentally disagree on the best course of action here. The problem isn't with the game it's with the people. Go ahead and change the setting or the rules, but it's not going to change the toxic behavior. They'll just find some other way to be toxic.

You, as the DM, don't really want to get into slavery. You like everything else about Dark Sun but not that. What do you say to this PC, then? "No, I don't want that in my game"? But it's literally part of the game and is treated no differently than than buying and selling steeds or weapons, according to the game itself. Or at least is treated no differently than buying poison (which D&D traditionally has decided is an evil act, yet poison has probably always had a gold piece value.)

As a DM, I'd put on my big boy pants and make some decisions. In this particular case, that decision would be not to run the game. There are plenty of other games for me to choose from where I don't have to worry about contents I don't particularly care for. Hell, I love Shadowrun but there's just one teeny tiny part of the game that means I'll never run it. The rules. Like all of them.

But Dark Sun wouldn't be Dark Sun without slavery in it. Which means it's not rando toxic players that would be messing everything up; it's the game itself.

As I mentioned earlier, we fundamentally disagree and further communication is unlikely to result in a consensus. The premises of your argument are false and therefore they do not effectively support your conclusion. At least that's how I see it, I understand you disagree. A game is not flawed because toxic players might use it as an opportunity to be jerks. A game is not flawed because it comtains elements I don't personally want to deal with.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is why the X-card, specifically, is so beneficial, though.

You don't have to "shape" stuff beforehand and try and anticipate every possible situation. And it's less disruptive to the game than you having to leave. It also makes people feel less bad.

I had things more like checklists in mind but the X Card is also something I am not really that sold on. In the times this happened, I don't feel an X Card would have made much of a difference for me. In one occasion I particularly remember, I won't get into the details here, but in this case it started with food, completely unrelated to the game, then some thoughts. I was also running the game so it wasn't about content. I only mentioned this to provide some context to my views on this (so people understand I know what it feels like to have a panic attack).

Obviously some people might use it and find some benefit. I realized for me, taking a break and dealing with the underlying problems was more important to me, and doing my best to keep whatever I was going through from disrupting the table was also important.

I also don't think an X Card would have helped me get better (in my case at least, I can't speak for other people). One initial problem for me when I first started having symptoms was I effectively used an X Card on the television (which is why I mentioned that). It became very clear though this was not healthy for me, was frustrating for people around me, and deepening my symptoms.

I think a lot of people "skeptical" of it just don't really understand it, or are put off by what they misperceive as "woke" language or the like. I mean, you can get more detailed descriptions, but the principle is simple.

for me it isn't so much about the woke language as I just don't think it is the healthiest approach. If people find it works for them, I have always said, they should use these tools. I also think because game designers and writers are not psychologists or pyschiatrists (at least most of them aren't), providing tools like this, when we don't really know anything about treating different forms of mental illness, may not be the best idea. Maybe these tools are useful. I am not saying people shouldn't have them available. But I worry that we've accepted it as a fact that this is the way to go, and I know in my case at least, it would have only caused more damage and taken me longer to recover if I had embraced a concept like safety tools to game while I was experiencing symptoms (again I am only speaking for myself here, I realize each case is its own).

1. There's a card with an X on it on the table.

2. If you're upset by what's going on, you tap the card.

3. At this point, you can explain if you want, and most people do, but you're not required - it's usually best to indicate the topic/incident causing it at least though, if it's anything but obvious.

4. The DM works out what to do - usually with some discussion with the player who tapped it - if it's a situation, that in-fiction is occurring, maybe you skip to past it. If it's a description of something, you stop the description, and so on.

I understand how X Cards work (I believe). I think I have two issues with the process. The first is I think it is unfair to have the group miss out on the things the X Card gets triggered by. People might not express it, but I do think if someone is upset every time green goblins show up, and it effectively results in those not being present in the game, then some players are going to feel like a pretty standard expectation of play is being taken away. The same could happen if you are simply skipping over scenes or descriptions. I also think if there is something a particular player can't handle in play, I'd rather that be a conversation before play begins or between sessions, so it can be decided the best way to deal with it (some groups might want to accommodate it, some might feel it is a request that can't be accommodated, etc). This is obviously stuff people have debated a lot. If groups want to use these tools, I have no objection. But I personally prefer not using this kind of method for dealing with problems related to a player's mental health (I will work with a player going through mental health issues, but I am also not a psychologist so there is only so much energy I am going to be able to expend accommodating someone if they are really going through something bad----and if it is that bad, and it is being set off by playing the game, I am not sure the game is going to be the best thing).

The second thing is I feel like having this button, at least in my case, could have really prolonged my symptoms (as I said in my prior paragraph). And I believe there would even be temptation to use it when it isn't necessary.

Again if it works for you and others, by all means, you should use it as a tool. I simply object to it becoming an expectation for all groups, or for all games to have safety tools (especially when I don't think designers are in much of a position to evaluate the efficacy of the safety tools----I believe you the player can certainly evaluate them for yourself, I just think it could be misleading for companies to offer safety tools when they don't really know what effect they are going to have on a person's mental health (i.e. if someone needs something like this to play an RPG, a much better approach in my opinion is for them to speak with their therapist, and through that conversation decide what procedures might be helpful---and then speak with their group about incorporating them). I get that isn't a conversation everyone wants to have. But having done therapy and seen the results, and also seen how important a therapists input is, I really think if someone is suffering from something as severe as PTSD, we are way better off as a community encouraging more openness about that and about the fact that some of us are in therapy, than using safety tools that could potentially be causing more harm than good for some people.

Some of this may also be cultural and regional as well. I think where I game and the types of people I tend to game with, an X card or other safety tool would feel very uncomfortable for all of us.

 

[MGibster]

Look at the flowers Lizzie.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about the child killing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You possibly missed my point.

The people are toxic. The game doesn't have to include information that would help to bolster that toxicity.

Dark Sun has slavery. Some people here are saying that slavery is needed for that setting to work, that it falls apart and wouldn't be Dark Sun without the slavery. Let's say that's true. No slavery = Not Dark Sun.

So you get a player that wants to buy and sell slaves, or turn captured enemies into slaves. Maybe this player is a bigoted person in real life. Maybe they have a fetish. Maybe they just get really into whatever setting they're playing in and want to roleplay accurately. Maybe they don't care because the slaves are just NPCs who probably don't even have names and it's no different in the long run than killing them and taking their stuff. The motive doesn't matter at the moment.

You, as the DM, don't really want to get into slavery. You like everything else about Dark Sun but not that. What do you say to this PC, then? "No, I don't want that in my game"? But it's literally part of the game and is treated no differently than than buying and selling steeds or weapons, according to the game itself. Or at least is treated no differently than buying poison (which D&D traditionally has decided is an evil act, yet poison has probably always had a gold piece value.)

If you, the DM, choose to make a big deal about it, you're messing with this setting that "has" to have slaves in it, and you're messing with the player's ability to play their character. If you remove slavery from the game because you don't like it, then you are, according to many people, playing something other than Dark Sun.

This isn't like having a toxic player who wants to, say, rape an NPC or even a PC, because no D&D settings have rape as an integral part of them. Probably no games whatsoever have rape as a central part--except for FATAL, of course. Probably any game that does have rape in it has it as a relatively minor part that could be very easily removed without changing the game at all. (If there are any non-FATAL games that have rape as an integral part, let me know so I can definitely avoid them.)

But Dark Sun wouldn't be Dark Sun without slavery in it. Which means it's not rando toxic players that would be messing everything up; it's the game itself.

Perhaps play your version of Dark Sun at your table without slavery in it then?

 

[Faolyn]

Perhaps play your version of Dark Sun at your table without slavery in it then?

That... completely ignores the entire point.

I get you don't like removing things from games, even if they're really bad things. But doesn't Dark Sun have enough cool stuff in it without including slavery?

There have been people on other Dark Sun threads who have literally said that you don't need a psionic system or even psionic archetypes for Dark Sun, because you can just reskin sorcerers. And yet it's slavery that's the thing the setting can't do without.

I mean, what does that say about the setting? "Ravenloft is the horror setting, Dragonlance is the epic fantasy setting, Forgotten Realms is the high magic setting, Eberron is the techmagic-and-politics setting, Dark Sun is the slavery setting."

That ain't a good look.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That... completely ignores the entire point.

I get you don't like removing things from games, even if they're really bad things. But doesn't Dark Sun have enough cool stuff in it without including slavery?

There have been people on other Dark Sun threads who have literally said that you don't need a psionic system or even psionic archetypes for Dark Sun, because you can just reskin sorcerers. And yet it's slavery that's the thing the setting can't do without.

I mean, what does that say about the setting? "Ravenloft is the horror setting, Dragonlance is the epic fantasy setting, Forgotten Realms is the high magic setting, Eberron is the techmagic-and-politics setting, Dark Sun is the slavery setting."

That ain't a good look.

Dark Sun is the Sword'n'Sandal, Rome/Sparta-esque setting. Slavery is part of that genre, and removing it makes it less like the thing it's supposed to be.

For the record, I do not believe anything less than a full psionics system will work for Dark Sun either. The re-skinned sorcerer as a replacement for psionics is, IMO, garbage, and only offered up by folks who likely don't care for psionics anyway.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But doesn't Dark Sun have enough cool stuff in it without including slavery?

I agree - it's extreme wide-scale societal oppression it needs, not chattel slavery specifically.

I think the only other two major things absolutely necessary things Dark Sun really needs are - a world destroyed by man-made climate change springing from the use of magic (which includes having defiling always out there as an option that you shouldn't take... but you could...), and the Sorcerer Kings ruling over it all, going for their transhuman future at the cost of pretty much everyone else.

(You also need Arcane magic to be extremely powerful - which it is in 5E/1D&D - and Clerics/Druids to not exist in their normal forms, but rather in their DS forms, but I think that sort of folds in to the first point.)

Those two things are of course, hilariously topical and have been getting more topical literally every year since 1991, and we considered them topical even in 1991!

The other major thing is it needs to be weird, and to be a sort of deconstructed/reconstructed take on planetary fantasy, but that's something that I think comes naturally.

I used to think Psionics was essential, but honestly I think the magic actually matters more, on a real analysis. The Psionics is more part of the weirdness and a way to have cool magic which isn't Arcane, Divine, or Primal.