D&D (2024) (+) New Edition Changes for Inclusivity (discuss possibilities)

[WayOfTheFourElements]

OTOH, Lovecraft most certainly IS problematic. His fiction and his personal life are rife with bigotry and intollerance. When he talks about the fish eyed abominations in Shadows of Innsmouth, he is SPECIFICALLY talking about my children. So, yeah, I'd say I have a fairly large problem with his inclusion in Appendix E. I would much rather see him removed. Now, why Lovecraft and not,say, Howard? Well, sure, Howard and Burroughs aren't exactly the epitome of cultural sensitivity, but, let's be honest, they are both more simply reflective of their times. Howard and Burroughs don't really go out of their way to attack various minorities in the way that Lovecraft does.

Doesn't that just make Lovecraft more challenging and horrifying? He is writing horror after all. Personally, I find his views horrific.

 

[MGibster]

Doesn't that just make Lovecraft more challenging and horrifying? He is writing horror after all.

I'm a big fan of Lovecraft, but even I can appreciate why he makes some people cringe and they have no desire to read his works. One of my favorite stories, "Herbert West - Reanimator" includes a particularly painful to read description of a black boxer that's difficult to read. Lovecraft's prose is challenging enough. Nobody should feel obligated to put up with his racism though.

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

OTOH, Lovecraft most certainly IS problematic. His fiction and his personal life are rife with bigotry and intollerance. When he talks about the fish eyed abominations in Shadows of Innsmouth, he is SPECIFICALLY talking about my children. So, yeah, I'd say I have a fairly large problem with his inclusion in Appendix E. I would much rather see him removed. Now, why Lovecraft and not,say, Howard? Well, sure, Howard and Burroughs aren't exactly the epitome of cultural sensitivity, but, let's be honest, they are both more simply reflective of their times. Howard and Burroughs don't really go out of their way to attack various minorities in the way that Lovecraft does.

On the flip side though, you also have Lovecraft's undoubtable influence on the game. The Great Old One warlock mentions Cthulhu by name, Dagon is a fairly important Demon Lord and the creatures that the old Lords of Madness book talks about that were surely inspired by, if not based on many creatures that originated from Lovecraft.

Honestly, just getting rid of him from the appendixes could just come across as a bandaid on a gaping wound that is the influence of a virulent racist inspiring a large swath of not just Dungeons and Dragons, but multiple generations of writers and storytellers, all inspired by someone who is pretty much unanimously considered a gigantic POS.

 

[SehanineMoonbow]

My problem with reading is when I start I have to finish... which isn't bad if it's just one book. But if there is a new series I find I like it really cuts into getting work done and getting to bed on time for a while. (I guess one good side effect of this spring being goofy is I didn't get in trouble for finally trying e-books through the library and finishing the couple dozen John Sanford Minnesota books the library had that I hadn't finished.).

Lol well, even busy people can find time to read, they just have to make it a point to do so, even if it's only 30 minutes in the morning or evening. Maybe set a timer for yourself (like a hour or two, or whatever time frame works) to read. That way, you will still get stuff done, but you can also reward yourself with a good book.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And, just to add a point - First Nations people most certainly DID use horses for draft animals as soon as they were introduced. Farming around the Five Nations region (think Southwestern Ontario and Northwestern New Yorkish) drastically changed as soon as horses were introduced.

And, considering there was trade between the Five Nations and Central American native groups, you'd think some bright spark might have brought horses to Mexico at some point in the thousands of years. Yet the Aztecs had no knowledge whatsoever of horses.

But, gack, look at me - chasing down some pointless rabbit hole. Sorry.

If I could think of a gaming angle I might try to start a separate thread, because you raise points worth considering.

I’ll simply note, instead, that what is bunk isn’t the idea of doubting that horses existed, even sparsely, in North America, during times that western scholarship has generally claimed they didn’t. Doubt is rarely bunk, by itself.

What is bunk is the academic habit of taking Western sources largely at their word, while requiring mountains of evidence from BIPOC. Oh, and I’ll note that I made no absolute statements about draft animals. Some Native communities did indeed use horses as draft animals. Others simply didn’t. It’s not especially strange. Some cultures never bothered with shoes until they met a culture that wore them. Others only used wheels for toys.

Now, that is actually a lead in to a gaming topic. How cultures don’t actually develop the same way when they have no early contact, and how we can apply that to worldbuilding.

 

[Cadence]

Lol well, even busy people can find time to read, they just have to make it a point to do so, even if it's only 30 minutes in the morning or evening. Maybe set a timer for yourself (like a hour or two, or whatever time frame works) to read. That way, you will still get stuff done, but you can also reward yourself with a good book.

I need a timer that grabs the book and puts it in an extra-dimensional pocket until the next day (or something like that). I don't seem to have the willpower unless a deadline is imminent.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

On the flip side though, you also have Lovecraft's undoubtable influence on the game. The Great Old One warlock mentions Cthulhu by name, Dagon is a fairly important Demon Lord and the creatures that the old Lords of Madness book talks about that were surely inspired by, if not based on many creatures that originated from Lovecraft.

Honestly, just getting rid of him from the appendixes could just come across as a bandaid on a gaping wound that is the influence of a virulent racist inspiring a large swath of not just Dungeons and Dragons, but multiple generations of writers and storytellers, all inspired by someone who is pretty much unanimously considered a gigantic POS.

At some point, I think, you just have to kick the author out of the club that they inspired.
Cosmic horror has grown vastly beyond Lovecraft. You can read modern authors like Gaiman and King and get plenty of cosmic horror inspiration that isn’t steeped in the fear that miscegenation would lead to a debased and monstrous humanity.

 

[Wishbone]

Doesn't that just make Lovecraft more challenging and horrifying? He is writing horror after all. Personally, I find his views horrific.

Eh, nah it makes him an anti-Semite and racial essentialist whose work is in the public domain. Also, to put it out there, I don't think his writing was very good overall and haven't touched his stories since I was in high school.

On the flip side though, you also have Lovecraft's undoubtable influence on the game. The Great Old One warlock mentions Cthulhu by name, Dagon is a fairly important Demon Lord and the creatures that the old Lords of Madness book talks about that were surely inspired by, if not based on many creatures that originated from Lovecraft.

Honestly, just getting rid of him from the appendixes could just come across as a bandaid on a gaping wound that is the influence of a virulent racist inspiring a large swath of not just Dungeons and Dragons, but multiple generations of writers and storytellers, all inspired by someone who is pretty much unanimously considered a gigantic POS.

Lovecraft's influence in modern day fantasy and horror is so much greater than it was when he was alive. Talking about his work without putting Lovecraft's views in the proper context is papering over how he sneaks in subtle and overt racist and colonialist concepts. That is all to say, if we can't get Lovecraft's influence out of modern fantasy, we should address Lovecraft's pernicious personal beliefs and how they influence his works and those works influenced by him (which I think a lot of scholarship has been doing a good job at lately).

 

[SehanineMoonbow]

I think it is important to be aware of problematic viewpoints of authors, and also to be aware of the time period they were written in (such as reading Huck Finn in high school). We can learn from history.

 

[Cadence]

Take the the Appendix E argument - should the authors in Appendix E be there or not? Now, @Cadence mentioned Lieber. I'm not aware of any issue regarding Leiber's writing. He doesn't come up at all and, in fact, I would generally hold up Leiber as being probably one of the best examples of a writer from the Golden Age that we can hold up as inspirational. Leiber's writing and his personal life, AFAIK (and please correct me if I'm wrong) haven't been an issue before, so, I have no idea why he would be a problem now.

I was thinking about LGBTQ+ writers, and my brain skipped to LGBTQ+ content in D&D, and if someone asked why would you need to put sex into it all, and then to the argument that if LGBTQ+ romance is bad why is cis-het stuff ok, and then to obvious books that had cis-het stuff, and then to books that had it badly.

I read the first two big collected volumes of the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories (The Three of Swords and The Swords' Masters). They had their ups and downs, but the first got me to read the second, and I remember definitely liking The Swords of Lankhmar. But by the end of the second collection I wasn't sure I wanted to track down the last book. So then I read a few reviews of the Knight and Knave of Swords and parts of “The Mer She" and “The Mouser Goes Below” sounded... pretty bad. (Did she only look 13? That benefit of soft hands? Voyeuring on a former crush instructing her slave girls? I don't know for sure, I didn't pick up that one but that's what the reviews had.). And so I was thinking of whether it was appropriate to have (what one review called) "Fifty Shades of the Gray Mouser" on the list or if folks might want a warning.

I certainly didn't mean to imply the recommended Leiber books had the same type of issue as Lovecraft. I don't mean to imply no books with sex should be on the list. I was just imagining different things some folks might like to be warned about if we're thinking about inclusivity.