D&D General Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity

[Mercurius]

I'm not sure how these two positions are meant to represent diametrically opposing views with a middle ground.

Could you clarify what you mean?

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm assuming the 'you' in this statement isn't referring to 'me' personally, so I'll move on.

Your view seems simplistic to me - let me explain.

I could describe Of Mice and Men as a book about people abusing a people with disabilities and they feel it's perfectly fine to do so. In that context, you could also say those people are evil and the book is inappropriate.

In Of Mice and Men, Lenny is constantly abused and humiliated by everyone around him. Are the people in the story evil? Or is it that people's perceptions of mental disabilities, in the story, are different than what we know today? Is that a discussion worth having or is that is that a straight no-go? George murders Lenny (sorry, spoiler). Is George a villain? You could argue he was being compassionate. Is it wrong to argue so? Does it mean I'm prejudice against people with disabilities? Does it mean we should never have any new stories that show people abusing people with disabilities?

Do you know why George kills Lenny? I remember the scene fairly well. George killed Lenny because if he took Lenny to the mob he was going to get killed in a brutal and violent fashion. Or, if that didn't happen, he would be taken to jail, where he would be locked in with violent criminals and a soft-soul like Lenny would have been destroyed by that experience.

You are right that Lenny is abused and humiliated constantly in the story. And never once does the author want us to celebrate that fact, indeed, the entire point is that the society is not set up for a person like Lenny. People don't understand him.


You seem to keep getting attached to this idea that I'm saying "showing bad things is bad". You are right, that would be simplistic.

It would be much more accurate to say "Celebrating bad things is bad"

Here, let me craft really extremely offensive book title to really drive this point home. This is bad, not something that I would ever condone being sold in any context.

Spoiler: Seriously, this is offensive, dealing with the Holocaust and WWII

A Book titled "Why the Holocaust was Good and should be Celebrated"

Do you think a book with that title deserves any protection? Do you think we should listen to the author as they try and explain that we should be allowed to show horrible things happening to people? The intent was not to show evil, but to celebrate it. To say it was in fact good.

That is the problem. That is what I am saying we cannot allow in our stories. We cannot celebrate evil and just and good and expect that we won't get criticized for it.

I'm not implying that the books or Orcs or whatever shouldn't change. I'm challenging the view that there is only one method to be inclusive. I want to hear people's ideas of how to be inclusive in relation to all D&D tropes and explore how it might change the game. I want to explore other parts of the game that can be construed as insensitive and explore solutions. I'm not just talking race. I'm talking disabilities, ageism, sexism etc.. I find it interesting. It seems taboo to even talk about where people see the future of the game. From your post, it seems that you feel the game will change with people's attitudes. That's great. Why not say that instead of insisting that I'm an anti-change racist? It's tiresome.

In the end, WotC is a gaming company so why should they have to tackle hard topics? It should be light and fun. They don't owe anyone challenging stories. If there is 'an established right' and 'wrong' in the real world, it is much safer and comfortable for people if our fiction or fantasy mirrors our world view.

I'm not against exploring topics, I'm not against using gaming as a lens to explore hard ideas.

I'm against the depiction of evil being shown as good.

You're not understanding me, Chaosmancer. I'm not saying that reality and fantasy have no relationship, but that a fantasy world is its own microcosm that has its own internal coherency that differs from our own world to varying degrees.

Of course we can look at it through the lens of our morality or, if we must, that of critical theory. We can look for signs of racism, cultural appropriation, colonialist thinking, and sensititivity faux pas of all kinds. But in so doing, not only are we being rather myopic and narrow in our perception, we're missing the primary purpose of the fantasy experience: to experience it as itself, to immerse ourselves within it and see the world from within. Mind you, I don't think applying such analytic lenses is completely without value, but we should be able to "take off the lens," to both look through other lenses, but also--and most importantly--experience the world without a lens. That is, as itself.

SNIP

This is not to say that we cannot relate our own morality or worldview to any of these "other worlds"--be they other cultures, animals, historical eras, or fantasy worlds--or come up with, say, a conception of universal human rights. But that to overly do so is a mis-application. It is a fusion of our own reality with an "other world" and, ironically, somewhat of a colonialist act.

You are right, I don't understand you, but I think that is in part because you seem to refuse to understand me.

So, let's take the Duergar step by step, and I'll show you where the problem is. Maybe that will help you get it.


The Duergar are evil, greedy and heartless dwarves: This is actually fine. Simplistic and "us vs them" but fine. If the book had stuck with this. No problem.

The Duergar are evil, greedy and heartless dwarves. They were enslaved and warped by the Mindflayers: Okay, we are getting more interesting here. Now we have a reason for them being evil. This could make for an interesting story.

The Duergar are evil, greedy and heartless dwarves. They were enslaved and warped by the Mindflayers. They were led free from slavery by the man who would become their new God. He took a journey through Hell to gain the power needed to free his people. He accept treasure, but tricked the devils by using magic so the treasure would not weigh him down. They attacked him, but he had too much to fight for and defeated them. They acted mirthful and silly, offering him hundreds of temptations, but he was stoic and refused anything except for his due: Okay... this is, odd right? I mean tricking Hell, being resolute in his goals. These are all things we can get behind. It adds a little to the story I guess, fleshes out the guy who freed them. But, I don't really need any of it.


The Duergar are evil, greedy and heartless dwarves. They were enslaved and warped by the Mindflayers. They were led free from slavery by the man who would become their new God. He took a journey through Hell to gain the power needed to free his people. He accept treasure, but tricked the devils by using magic so the treasure would not weigh him down. They attacked him, but he had too much to fight for and defeated them. They acted mirthful and silly, offering him hundreds of temptations, but he was stoic and refused anything except for his due. Then they broke free of the Mind Flayers and returned to the surface to rejoin their kin. But the good and noble dwarves turned them away, saying their enslavement was their own fault for being greedy and lazy and ignoring Moradin's warnings. Wait, what? Here is the problem. Why are the dwarves good and noble for turning them away? Why are they being called lazy and when did Moradin even warn them? And, sure they didn't turn down treasure, but tricking Hell out of a ton of gold isn't exactly a bad thing. Why is any of this even needed, what are we adding here? Why not go back up to the second section, that didn't have all this.


The Duergar are evil, greedy and heartless dwarves. They were enslaved and warped by the Mindflayers. They were led free from slavery by the man who would become their new God. He took a journey through Hell to gain the power needed to free his people. He accept treasure, but tricked the devils by using magic so the treasure would not weigh him down. They attacked him, but he had too much to fight for and defeated them. They acted mirthful and silly, offering him hundreds of temptations, but he was stoic and refused anything except for his due. Then they broke free of the Mind Flayers and returned to the surface to rejoin their kin. But the good and noble dwarves turned them away, saying their enslavement was their own fault for being greedy and lazy and ignoring Moradin's warnings. So, the Evil and Cruel Duergar swore bloody vengeance against the good Dwarves and their Divine Father Moradin, and the two sides have been at war ever since. The Dwarves joyful acts of creation against the mindless drudgery and hate of the Duergar. Again, what? Of course the Duergar swore vengeance, they are being mistreated, and why are we calling the dwarves good and noble and applying all this positive imagery to them? They are the ones in the wrong. Why are we supposed to root for the dwarves, I'm with Laduguer, at least that guy never abandoned his people. He refused worlds worth of tempation so he could have the power to free his people from slavery. That guy is worth following.



Does this make more sense now? Duergar are evil by itself isn't bad. Duergar are evil because they were enslaved by the mindflayers, not bad, could be interesting. Duergar are evil because they were enslaved and the dwarves were right to call them lazy and greedy and cast them out after they freed themselves from slavery.... what? Why is any of that even needed?

Heck, you could have the same Duergar blaming the dwarves with a simple change and it would still be better. The Duergar never went back to the dwarves. Instead they sent a message declaring a war of vengeance against the dwarves for not saving them. To which the dwarven reaction was "wait, you guys were alive?! We thought you were all killed. What happened? You needed saving?".

That would be better. Instead, we got the dwarves rightfully banishing the Duergar for the sin of being enslaved. Which is sickening.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Do you know why George kills Lenny? I remember the scene fairly well. George killed Lenny because if he took Lenny to the mob he was going to get killed in a brutal and violent fashion. Or, if that didn't happen, he would be taken to jail, where he would be locked in with violent criminals and a soft-soul like Lenny would have been destroyed by that experience.

You are right that Lenny is abused and humiliated constantly in the story. And never once does the author want us to celebrate that fact, indeed, the entire point is that the society is not set up for a person like Lenny. People don't understand him.


You seem to keep getting attached to this idea that I'm saying "showing bad things is bad". You are right, that would be simplistic.

It would be much more accurate to say "Celebrating bad things is bad"

Here, let me craft really extremely offensive book title to really drive this point home. This is bad, not something that I would ever condone being sold in any context.

I didn't bother reading the spoiler content. No need to drive anything home. I agree with you'. I know why George kills Lenny and that was my point. The story is deeper. Done properly, you can put a lens on topics that are bad without it being bad. That's the point pulling it apart and analyzing it.

I think the Druegar story is interesting. On the surface, I can see why people would be upset by that story and think it's drivel. For game content, I think that's a bit of bad writing. If you take away the opening sentence and the ending sentence, there is no judgement on either race. The whole passage is nothing more than History - description. I do think it makes for an interesting story, though, if you start adding personalities to the history. Just think of how you lead your players by the nose only to find out the righteous dwarves are actually the bad guy.

Edit: I think the writers have to stop making judgement calls and keep things closer to 'historical facts'.

I'm not against exploring topics, I'm not against using gaming as a lens to explore hard ideas.

Neither am I. But it it an appropriate? As I said previously, WotC is a gaming/media company so I'm not sure they should touch on tough subjects. Should they leave it up to the gamer or should they provide guidelines of how to delve deeper and explore those topics?

I find this part hard to articulate, so forgive me,

I, literally, never thought of Orcs as a racist thing until this thread pointed it out. In my own games, goblins keep coming up as the issue (maybe because we play lots of low level games). Years ago, never a problem - kill the goblins. These days, harder to justify. Is it my age or the fact that society is changing? Or is it that I'm more interested in more complex stories?

There is nothing in Mines of Phandelver that touches on the what-ifs of murdering a cave full of goblins. In Mines, you can ally yourself with the goblins against the Bugbear. But it's hard. Goblins are described as cruel and they're often murdering people and robbing caravans. Can you, in good conscious let them live? What if you find out they murdered someone in Phandelver and you could have prevented that? A note to the DM of how do deal with them differently or how different tables can approach the challenge would be useful. Sure, one day they might change the flavor of goblins but I don't think that it's the (only) answer.

In the end, is it their responsibility or the gamers responsibility to venture into those complicated issues? IDK, honestly.

I think WotC is just trying to navigate the current affairs and, as people in a company, want to put out a product that isn't in conflict with their own values. On the other side of the coin, it's hard to use gaming as a lens to explore hard ideas without also touching on sensitive topics that might make people feel uncomfortable.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Side note: Now I'm curious what did Moradin warn them about? Did he actually warn them against something or was it just an excuse the Dwarves made? There's part of the story missing there.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Side note: Now I'm curious what did Moradin warn them about? Did he actually warn them against something or was it just an excuse the Dwarves made? There's part of the story missing there.

We are never told. We are told that the dwarves said "you ignored Moradin's warnings". We are never told what those were or if they even happened.

I didn't bother reading the spoiler content. No need to drive anything home. I agree with you'. I know why George kills Lenny and that was my point. The story is deeper. Done properly, you can put a lens on topics that are bad without it being bad. That's the point pulling it apart and analyzing it.

I think the Druegar story is interesting. On the surface, I can see why people would be upset by that story and think it's drivel. For game content, I think that's a bit of bad writing. If you take away the opening sentence and the ending sentence, there is no judgement on either race. The whole passage is nothing more than History - description. I do think it makes for an interesting story, though, if you start adding personalities to the history. Just think of how you lead your players by the nose only to find out the righteous dwarves are actually the bad guy.

Edit: I think the writers have to stop making judgement calls and keep things closer to 'historical facts'.

See, I think you are on the right path with the second paragraph, but it ends up requiring you to add or subtract from the story.

If we take the events, they can be made interesting by altering the exact details. But, the fact that you almost have to do that is part of the problem I have. You can make it work, but you can't really make it work without altering it in someway.

Neither am I. But it it an appropriate? As I said previously, WotC is a gaming/media company so I'm not sure they should touch on tough subjects. Should they leave it up to the gamer or should they provide guidelines of how to delve deeper and explore those topics?

I find this part hard to articulate, so forgive me,

I, literally, never thought of Orcs as a racist thing until this thread pointed it out. In my own games, goblins keep coming up as the issue (maybe because we play lots of low level games). Years ago, never a problem - kill the goblins. These days, harder to justify. Is it my age or the fact that society is changing? Or is it that I'm more interested in more complex stories?

There is nothing in Mines of Phandelver that touches on the what-ifs of murdering a cave full of goblins. In Mines, you can ally yourself with the goblins against the Bugbear. But it's hard. Goblins are described as cruel and they're often murdering people and robbing caravans. Can you, in good conscious let them live? What if you find out they murdered someone in Phandelver and you could have prevented that? A note to the DM of how do deal with them differently or how different tables can approach the challenge would be useful. Sure, one day they might change the flavor of goblins but I don't think that it's the (only) answer.

In the end, is it their responsibility or the gamers responsibility to venture into those complicated issues? IDK, honestly.

I think WotC is just trying to navigate the current affairs and, as people in a company, want to put out a product that isn't in conflict with their own values. On the other side of the coin, it's hard to use gaming as a lens to explore hard ideas without also touching on sensitive topics that might make people feel uncomfortable.

I can't answer whether or not it is appropriate, that depends table to table.

One thing I've always done when dealing with orcs or goblins at the table, is that they are encountered as groups of enemy soldiers. "These orcs are attacking the caravan of women and children" doesn't pose any moral quandaries for my players. I never say all orcs are evil, just that these orcs in front of you are.

But, that can also be really hard sometimes. We had a game once where the DM had a maze full of undead, and we encountered a husband and wife vampire pair. The thing was though, they didn't know they were vampires. They'd been wondering in this maze for so long it had altered them, but since they had never left they had no idea what had happened to them. One player was playing the Oathbreaker paladin and dominated the wife, and treated her monstrously. Because they were vampires, and therefore evil soulless monsters.

The DM never said that, in fact, they were hoping to inject a little moral quandry by having us figure out a way to help them. But, it devolved into a mess because one player assumed all vampires were evil and stopped thinking after that.

And so, it can be rough. And I think it will never be an easy question to answer. But putting forth the effort to just make sure we have nuance and understanding is a great start

 

[Lanefan]

Yes but that’s a bit of a cop out isn’t it? Yes, we know this is bad but because we put up a disclaimer, you lose the right to complain about it.

Why not just excise the objectionable stuff?

Unlike you, who seems laser-beam focused on the language surrounding orcs (and maybe drow) and nothing else, some of us are looking at bigger-picture issues and questions raised by these discussions.

One of those bigger-picture questions is whether WotC (or any other major RPG designer) is bound to adhere to real-world ethics when presenting aspects of their game(s); and that's what I was respondng to in the post you quoted.

For example: are they bound to present a game-world society where slavery is an accepted fact of life and world domination is the overall goal as always being Evil? If yes, this bans them from presenting any sort of sympathetic portrayal of the Roman Empire, for which both the above statements are true; and yet a game based in Roman times with the PCs as Romans has loads of potential. Hence, the disclaimer idea I suggested.

 

[Lanefan]

Maybe Mercurius will defend his view himself, but he is not putting any kind of nuance in his statement. If it is a fictional story, you cannot judge anything in it by real world morality. That is the end of his sentence usually. We cannot judge it.

I'd also like to point out the bolded section, can you point me to a good version of child abuse? Honestly curious because in my mind, you aren't a good person if you abuse a child, by default that is an evil action.

And that gets right back into the problem Mercurius's point has. Let us say that you write a hero, a paladin just for giggles. Great guy, pillar of his community, helps old ladies cross the street. Then, after we've followed him around seeing how great he is, a dirty streetkid comes up to beg for some coin. And the guy beats the kid, viciously, teeth go flying. In public. An no one bats an eye.

Doesn't that disconnect say something about the world being presented? Isn't that dissonance meaningful to the story being told?

But, if I can't bring real-world morality in to judge those actions, then I can saying nothing bad about this paladin. My real world ethics do not apply. I can't say that the story is about child abuse, I can't say that it is about mistreatment of the poor, or how those in power threaten and use that power to make others view them as good. I can say nothing about any of that.

To talk about the italicized part, that is never what I have been saying. No one is saying that the depiction of an immoral act makes the material itself immmoral.

You might not have said it but others have, many times and not just here.

Much of the Satanic panic revolved around portrayal of immoral acts (e.g. demon summoning) in the D&D books made D&D itself immoral.

Also, even though your real-world self might think or say something about a world in which a Paladin kicks kids in the teeth just for fun, that doesn't and shouldn't stop an author from designing and presenting a setting where street children are considered chattel and have the same standing as stray dogs, and where the Paladin is in fact a hero to the people.

The depiction of an immoral act, framed and presented to us as a moral action, makes the material immoral. If the author of that paladin story wanted us to come away thinking that the poor should be beaten into submission as is the right of the world, then he would have written a material that is immoral.

This gets messy.

What this means is that two authors could write the exact same story word for word, and the only thing that would determine which one was moral and which wasn't is the writers' intent, which may never be known.

So, again, it isn't that there is evil in the world, or that evil is simplistic that I have been having a problem with. It is that good has been shown as doing evil, but we are being told the evil they did was actually perfectly fine and good. That is a the problem.

The problem is more of failing to divorce, partly or fully, real-world considerations and setting considerations. In the setting an author is presenting, perhaps something we real people would consider evil is an accepted part of life, and those who do it (or do it best) are hailed as heroes and the goal of the commoners is to one day be just like those heroes.

It also comes down to how one reads one's fiction (or approaches one's RPGs), and how seriously one takes any of it. I rarely if ever read anything as if it was a morality play; instead I read it to immerse myself in the author's setting for the time I spend reading the book, ignoring real-world considerations due to being fully aware that real-world considerations may or may not have any overlap with the considerations of the book's setting. Same goes for playing RPGs.

The issue is that Mercurius seems to be of the opinion that a reader cannot decide what is good or bad. That you must rely solely on the narrator or the framing, and then accept that whatever happened was good or bad.

Within the fiction, yes; as the relative goodness or badness is set by the conceits already presented in said fiction.

A reader can of course decide - and debate or discuss with others - whether that setting's conceits would be good or bad in reality, if said reader wants to bother.

Good, upstanding soldiers burning a town to the ground and cooking people alive? That isn't a story about war crimes, or good people doing bad things, that is a story of good people doing the right thing, because you were presented with it being the right thing, and this is a fantasy story so we can't bring real world ethics in and say they are wrong.

You can bring real-world ethics in if you want, but why? Enjoy the fiction for what it is - fiction - and leave real-world ethics for the real world.

This is how I generally approach playing and-or DMing RPGs - that the fiction I'm presenting or playing within has little if any relation to reality, and so I can dial stuff up to eleven and do things I'd never be able (or allowed!) to do in reality. The only place reality intervenes is if something would be offensive to someone else at the table.

But, the entire point of a story of that is to emphasize the horror of it, to emphasize how terrible and wrong it is. You expect unspeakable acts from bad people, seeing them from good people is jarring and makes you question things.

On reflection, maybe, and perhaps that was the author's intent. Perhaps it wasn't; and unless the author has otherwise stated his-her intent in writing that work we've no way of knowing which it is.

 

[Hussar]

Unlike you, who seems laser-beam focused on the language surrounding orcs (and maybe drow) and nothing else, some of us are looking at bigger-picture issues and questions raised by these discussions.

One of those bigger-picture questions is whether WotC (or any other major RPG designer) is bound to adhere to real-world ethics when presenting aspects of their game(s); and that's what I was respondng to in the post you quoted.

For example: are they bound to present a game-world society where slavery is an accepted fact of life and world domination is the overall goal as always being Evil? If yes, this bans them from presenting any sort of sympathetic portrayal of the Roman Empire, for which both the above statements are true; and yet a game based in Roman times with the PCs as Romans has loads of potential. Hence, the disclaimer idea I suggested.

Yeah, if you’re presenting slavery as good and justified, I’m thinking you’ve got a tough row to hoe.

You can have slave owning pc’s. Sure. Just don’t pretend that they are morally justified. They are evil.

Would you actually classify Roman society as good?

 

[Umbran]

I don't disagree, but that's not really what I was trying to get at. A lot of these discussions are based around applying real world perspectives to fantasy contexts, which I see as, at the very least, an unnecessary transposition from one context to another; in this case, reality to fantasy. I think it also has to do with a limited conception of what fantasy is, both historically and in terms of the creative act itself.

With respect... go find us a fantasy novel that leaves the morals and ethics of the time it was written completely behind. Find an example already written that we are apt to know to display what you expect should happen, so we can discuss it in more than theoretical terms.

 

[Curmudjinn]

I just want to play D&D...