D&D 5E D&D Promises to Make the Game More Queer

[Irda Ranger]

Which is a shame and demonstrates how far we still have to come as a species. I will not, however, advocate for the use of the wrong tools for the right reasons.

Your mindset here is way off. You're basically arguing that humanity *should* work a particular way, when they demonstrably don't work that way. And by saying that our species still has far to go, you're implying that change in this manner is possible. It isn't.

This point of view is about as helpful as a Marxist arguing that "Well, people shouldn't be so self-interested, dang it!"

 

[hawkeyefan]

Everyone who disagrees with his ideology but still loves D&D and wants to support the game (just not the ideology Crawford presents). How would you like it if D&D came out and said, "we're no longer going to include images of blacks in our gamebooks."

You'd be torn. On the one hand, you love the game (as an apolitical object of fun and enjoyment) and would want to support the game. On the other hand, you hate the message. You have the option, now, of supporting both or neither. It's a simple choice to decide which one you'd support (it would be for me, too), but the thought experiment shows how media is not the correct, ethical tool to use when promoting an agenda.

I hate to pile on, but your using some really wonky logic to try and defend a stance that really isn't defensible. Your argument relies on treating inclusion and exclusion as being equal, which is odd.

Let's say D&D had started 25 years earlier than it did, say 1950 or so, and as a result they didn't depict black people in the art. And then later on, maybe around 1975 or 1980, a black creator for the game decided to try and make sure that examples of black people were included.

So you're saying that if that had been the case, leaving things as is would be the preferable goal? That the creator who wanted to change things was in the wrong?

It's ludicrous.

Also, in your example....no, I would not be torn. There's very obviously only one decent path in that scenario.

All I'm saying is that the a children's game is not the right place for that battle to play out.

It absolutely is. Morality....good and evil, right and wrong....it's at the core of D&D.

 

[tombowings]

Yeah, no. You have this backwards. What if D&D came out and said, "we're no longer going to exclude images of blacks in our gamebooks."

Now how torn do you feel?

Exactly the same as I did before: that propaganda has no place in roleplaying. The argument is irrelevant. It does matter if I agree with it or not. The right place in the right place; the right time is the right time, but promoting one's agenda through a roleplaying game book certainly isn't it.

 

[Caliban]

All I'm saying is that the a children's game is not the right place for that battle to play out.

I object to having a hobby I have spent most of my adult life engaging in referred to as a "children's game".

While children can and do play it, I'm pretty certain that most D&D players are adults.

 

[Gradine]

Everyone who disagrees with his ideology but still loves D&D and wants to support the game (just not the ideology Crawford presents). How would you like it if D&D came out and said, "we're no longer going to include images of blacks in our gamebooks."

You'd be torn. On the one hand, you love the game (as an apolitical object of fun and enjoyment) and would want to support the game. On the other hand, you hate the message. You have the option, now, of supporting both or neither. It's a simple choice to decide which one you'd support (it would be for me, too), but the thought experiment shows how media is not the correct, ethical tool to use when promoting an agenda.

I understand this argument, intellectually, but here's the flipside of the argument that you seem to be consistently ignoring: there is no such thing as something which is apolitical.

For reference, there was (thankfully not considerable, but still existant) backlash when the PHB came out because it had black people in it, or because of that statement on gender and sexuality. There were a lot more voices of support, but there was also backlash. Had the PHB not included any images of POC? That would have assuredly provoked a response as well, both against and in support.

The incontrovertible fact, and one that you have been consistently ignoring throughout this thread, is that refusing to take a side is still taking a side. The status quo is a side, and choosing to maintain it promotes, whether you want it to or not, an ideological standpoint. There is no neutrality on the issue of more diverse representation.

What you're arguing for is for Mr. Crawford to have not revealed his reasoning for more diverse representation (which you have insisted multiple times you are in favor of), but that means you've both a) taken a side and b) are asking for media content creators to either let their work speak for themselves or else to be intellectually dishonest, but given the politicized nature of, well, everything in this day and age, is increasingly more a matter of having to do both.

But where you are most demonstrably wrong is that media is a perfectly correct and ethical tool to use when promoting an ideological agenda, and media has been used for betterment of society for centuries, if not millenia. History classes would teach us about Uncle Tom's Cabin or The Jungle. Hell, most of our oldest surviving media (in the form of the Odyssey and other ancient Greek stories and plays) promoted an ideological stance, and that's carried through our most celebrated historical authors, from Shakespeare to Voltaire to the Chinese Four Books & Five Classics to Twain to Buck to Huxley to Bradbury to this very day. The only "apolitical" media is media that exclusively reinforces the dominant narrative of the age and place, and I hate to break to you, but that's as political as anything attempting to upset those narratives.

 

[TwoSix]

Depends how it is done. I would consider normalisation to be propaganda if and only if the aspect being introduced is only presented in one light. If all characters with that aspect are heroic, villainous, competent, incompetent, admirable, or ridiculous then it's propaganda. If the aspect is applied across the gamut in about the same ratio it appears in studied populations then it is simply normalization.

Fair, but having something only appear as anomalous also carries some moral weight, in the sense that the standard reaction to something being "different" is that "different is bad". Just by making something seem more prevalent you're implicitly changing its characterization.

 

[Ancalagon]

Tolkien wrote:

The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like 'religion', to cults or practices, in the imaginary world.

Eowyn is amazing. Shieldmaiden. Lich King slayer. The leader of her people. Mother. Her action on the Pellinor Fields was essential to the plot. No man could kill the Lich King. Only a woman. Her story rides in the saddle between two eras of women's political movements. Had I a notion to play a female in D&D, I find her character appealing. Badass even. An icon for both straight gals and lesbians.

How does including homosexuality references for the sake of saying there are homosexuals in the world, increase my gaming fun or compel me to play a gay adventurer?

DM:"You just slew Alfhahm the Great. And by the way, he was gay."
DM:"You just slew Alfhahm the Great. And by the way, he was straight."

Apparently one needs to be mentioned and the other one does not.

Anyways, when stocking my fantasy world, I let the dice decide not WoTC.

Questions and confusions: Going through published modules and making changes has been a thing for as long as I have been gaming. If there is a queer reference and I line through it and make it unQueer, is that offensive? Would the players even know?

Likewise, I could write through a module I have and make unQueer, Queer.

Crawford's mandate bothers me at an authority level. Like a power/corruption thing.

Well, since I too invoked Tolkien...

Eowyn is an amazing character... But she is a woman because she had to be one, plot wise.

It tells us that Tolkien definitely was no woman-hater. But is it not curious that every character is male except those who *have* to be women?

This is what I fear happens when we include a character characteristic "because it works with the story " as opposed to mundane considerations such as "half of people are women". We end up with every character being as what the author sees as being the norm, which for Tolkien (or me, or the others who thankfully have admitted to the same) are white straight cis men.

To break that habbit needs a contious decision.



Sent from my SM-G930W8 using EN World mobile app

 

[tombowings]

I hate to pile on, but your using some really wonky logic to try and defend a stance that really isn't defensible. Your argument relies on treating inclusion and exclusion as being equal, which is odd.

Let's say D&D had started 25 years earlier than it did, say 1950 or so, and as a result they didn't depict black people in the art. And then later on, maybe around 1975 or 1980, a black creator for the game decided to try and make sure that examples of black people were included.

So you're saying that if that had been the case, leaving things as is would be the preferable goal? That the creator who wanted to change things was in the wrong?

It's ludicrous.

Also, in your example....no, I would not be torn. There's very obviously only one decent path in that scenario.

As I said in my thought experiment above, whether you'd support the game or not is a simple choice. Of course you would give up supporting it. I would to. But it shows how the use of media as a vehicle of a specific ideology is problematic. You like the game. You want to support the game, but not you can't because of its agenda. It's uncomfortable.

As I've said, right message, wrong medium.

 

[Morrus]

Exactly the same as I did before: that propaganda has no place in roleplaying. The argument is irrelevant. It does matter if I agree with it or not. The right place in the right place; the right time is the right time, but promoting one's agenda through a roleplaying game book certainly isn't it.

EN World is not the right place for your propaganda. Please choose a more suitable venue.

 

[Uchawi]

I don't think D&D is a game for children regardless of any motivations a player, DM or developer may have. Regardless, it is ultimately a decision the parent must make. The game can't make it for you.