D&D General The Art and the Artist: Discussing Problematic Issues in D&D

[Jackdaw McGraw]

This is a hugely important point that rarely every gets made, and applies in both directions: Not only should we try to extend tolerance to those we disagree with today, but also recognize that we, ourselves, are products of our time.

One of the benefits of getting older is you start realizing that you change over time. I'm not in the latter half of my 40s and I would disagree with a lot of what I thought even 10 years ago, certainly 20 years ago.

We are not static beings, and there is no singular, final or perfect worldview to aspire to.

This will be 20 years old in a few months.

This is is gold star shade. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but the heat that's rising off this is chef's kiss.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I guess I'll repost what I said in the previous iteration, as my opinion hasn't really changed:

It is fine to like problematic things, it is fine to like art made by terrible people and it is fine to take influence from such art. But what I personally am not comfortable doing is financially supporting people who use their fame and fortune to spread hatred. And that makes Rowling a completely different matter to me than Lovecraft. Lovecraft is long dead and pretty much everyone agrees that his views on race were terrible, Rowling is very much alive and using her considerable influence to promote bigotry. So I will not spend one cent that has even a remotest chance of supporting that. Perhaps in hundred years Potter books are cherished fantasy classics and Rowling's odious views are just an unpleasant footnote with no real power. But today they cannot be overlooked.

While I am totally at loss to understand how the morality of the person who made a piece of art can impact its artistic values, as someone who genuinely enjoyed art and architecture from diffrent, competing cultures holding values of the past without any difficulty, I can understand your position. Not giving financial incentive to someone who actively promote a position you don't like is more akin to boycott than "not liking the art because of the author". A solution would be to enjoy the arts without contributing, by buying used books or borrowing them, to avoid being hurt by your boycott.

 

[Deset Gled]

This is is gold star shade. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but the heat that's rising off this is chef's kiss.

No shade intended. I generally agree with Mercurius on this point.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

While I am totally at loss to understand how the morality of the person who made a piece of art can impact its artistic values, as someone who genuinely enjoyed art and architecture from diffrent, competing cultures holding values of the past without any difficulty, I can understand your position. Not giving financial incentive to someone who actively promote a position you don't like is more akin to boycott than "not liking the art because of the author". A solution would be to enjoy the arts without contributing, by buying used books or borrowing them, to avoid being hurt by your boycott.

I think that the internet tends to cause people to retreat into exaggerated positions, and most people have more nuanced appreciation for the issues in their day-to-day lives.

 

[Mercurius]

This is is gold star shade. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but the heat that's rising off this is chef's kiss.

Perhaps you could explain what you mean, as I have no idea what you're talking about. What do you think I am shading?

 

[Lyxen]

I'm having trouble understanding your argument. Can you give an example in the context of D&D?

I'm not sure I can, tbh, in the context of D&D. But if you have a look at the examples of this thread, I hope you'll understand.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I'm not sure I can, tbh, in the context of D&D. But if you have a look at the examples of this thread, I hope you'll understand.

The OP asked us to keep the topic on D&D, which is why I was asking.

 

[Lyxen]

The OP asked us to keep the topic on D&D, which is why I was asking.

I understand which is why I tried and did not want to diverge too much either.

 

[Malmuria]

D&D was created from a specific place and time- 70s America. Because of that, early D&D necessarily contains artifacts that are of its time; whether it is the "cheesecake" art that made the game less welcoming to women, or the causal exoticism of the other (such as descriptions of cannibals and savages in certain areas), or the gender-based maximum ability scores. Today, D&D (and 5e) incorporates a much wider range of influences while retaining a link to the past of the game. We continue to struggle with what aspects of D&D are necessary to maintain that continuity (to make it "D&D") and what aspects are necessary to throw into the dustbin of history.

Thanks for the post, and I agree with your comments generally. However, I think you are assuming that the above is consensus, that is, that everyone can agree that aspects of 70s dnd were products of their time and now outdated. Unfortunately I don't think there is a consensus that descriptions like "primitive" and "savage" carry with them colonial echos, for example, or that items that "curse" your character with a gender change make the game less inclusive. The discussions I've been a part of have often had to establish this ground, and I'm not sure that was successfully accomplished in the end (including in the GAZ 10 thread).

In this case the easiest sort of "evidence" to provide are quotes directly from the author, showing a certain amount of intentionality, leading to all the dynamics that you talk about in the OP. However, lost in this discussion are all the other elements of context, including the historical circumstances that made the work of art possible and the intertextual influences, acknowledged or not. This is important when it comes to the development of tropes and genre; the 10 year old today can be interested in stories of warriors fighting dragons without being aware of the existence of Beowulf.

Compounding this difficulty is the assumption that the endpoint of these discussions is necessarily offense and moral judgement. I suppose this makes a certain intuitive sense: racism is bad, right? So if you are saying a text contains problematic racial tropes, then surely you are taking offense at said text? Surely you want it banned, just like we remove those statues of slave traders? Well again, not quite, because context is important. Most of the time, I might just be making an observation or an argument, drawing a line connecting the text or image in front of me to a longer history. Bigotry is sometimes acute, but is more often pervasive; being able to notice and point that out is important, and per what I say above, not immediately obvious. So, do I think Kipling should be banned from literature anthologies? No. When I teach Kipling do I emphasize the context of empire, colonialism, and war in which poems like "The White Man's Burden" were written? Yes. (Should the British foreign secretary recite Kipling while visiting a former British colony in the year 2017. No, you idiot.).

 

[MGibster]

This is where I'm throwing it out for discussion. Please keep the discussion focused on D&D.

This seems a little weird given that you brought up all sorts of things that weren't D&D in a conversation you want to remain focused on D&D. But I'm going to do my best.

As a general rule, it is my opinion that the game can, and should, evolve when it comes to the rules of the game. People can do whatever they want to in their own games, of course, and always play past editions if that's what they really want ... but the idea that "we've always done this, so we must always do this," usually is a poor argument, and would mean that we would still be playing with cheesecake art and gendered ability maximums.

The game certainly has changed and evolved over the years. The first edition I bought in 1989 was different from the one my friend's older brother bought in 1983. It will continue to change to meet the needs of contemporary audiences or it will do the way of the dodo bird.

On the other hand, I would disagree with those who would argue for removing any possible reference to the Cthulhu mythos, root and branch, from D&D as I have seen argued here.

I don't know if I've heard that exact argument. The one I heard is from those who want to strike any mention of Lovecraft's name from the record. i.e. Make sure he's not mentioned in the bibliography or on the list of books that might have influenced the authors of the game.

As a general rule, it is my opinion that for legacy products you provide an appropriate disclaimer, and otherwise let it be. Products are, for better and for worse, a product of their time. If a product is to be re-released (to 5e, for example), then it should be updated.

At times I've been pleasantly surprised by some older products. I recently purchased a Cyberpunk 2020 Humble Bundle and was surprised to see books that included positive portrayals of LGTBQ people when such things weren't all that common in the 1990s. There's a transgender barkeep in Tales from the Forlorn Hope who isn't treated with many of the negative tropes we might expect. It's not perfect, her husband does out her as transgender during an interview, but he does say, "She was a woman when I met her, and that's how I've always thought of her. She's showed me photos, of course, but I've never really been able to associate them with the way she is now." Again, not exactly common in the 1990s.