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

[HammerMan]

But not to trample pointlessly long on semantics, the issue I am seeing is that it doesn't hold water if anyone says something like "I am X and I don't like this" and that is taken to mean "this is hostile to X people". Which is how I see a lot of discourse about inclusiveness and hostility taking place.

again... if the majority of gamers are cis white males... then we have to pick sides. When some % of X says they want A and another % of X want B... we are the outsiders looking in. We are the ones that then have to decide how to be a good alley to X. The problem is how do we that are NOT X decide what is or isn't right? By themselves even a unified minority is just that, a minority. So they need allies in the majority. The problem lies with how do we try to fret out "Is this hostel or is that sub group of X over reaching" Harder still is

When someone in the Majority tells you "This minority wants X" and then someone in the minority tell you "No we want Y" and that original person from the majority shows some % of the minority wants X... and that member of the minority shows that some % want Y... now what?

 

[HammerMan]

This feels like a very strained example to me. Again, it is still a knife that can be used to hurt a person physically, even kill them. Unless we are talking about rpg books being used in that way, or works of art being used to do things like physically crush people.....I don't see how this has much relevance.

what if it's a dove of peace? (if you know you know)

 

[HammerMan]

Ok, but do you understand that they DON'T weigh against each other?

5 stories of people who weren't harmed and 5 stories of people who were harmed are not contradictory.

Half of them document that people were harmed. The other don't show that they WEREN'T harmed; only that some other people weren't.

correct... but notice you just made it 50/50. My question isn't "can anyone ever be harmed in anyway" it's "How do we cause the least harm with the most good"

if your 10 people (and again we are talking all 10 as honest) 5 say they want something changed, and 5 say they want it to stay the same... the 5 that want it changed say it hurt them in some way... but they share they same characteristic with the other 5? how do you choose what 5 are the ones in the right?

It gets worse if you survey 100 people and 5 want it changed and 5 want it to stay... but 90 either don't know or don't care one way or another.

How do you choose the 'least harm'

is 5 in 10 enough to change it, is 5 in 20, 5 in 100, 5 in 1,000? at what point is the scale tipped? is it 51% is it at 40% is it at .001%

 

[Bill Zebub]

This feels like a very strained example to me. Again, it is still a knife that can be used to hurt a person physically, even kill them. Unless we are talking about rpg books being used in that way, or works of art being used to do things like physically crush people.....I don't see how this has much relevance.

My point was that the "but it's art" defense has limited usefulness, simply because it can always be invoked. Not that I want governments deciding what is art and what isn't, but I don't find it a compelling reason to simply accept hateful/harmful content.

 

[MGibster]

Harm can be difficult to measure but thankfully we generally don't need to weigh it, check its volume, or put it through a spectrometer. While it would be nice if people could be more specific about how something is harmful, I don't really feel the need to dwell on how harmful something might be. Nor do I find it useful to compare it to cutting oneself with a knife.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My point was that the "but it's art" defense has limited usefulness, simply because it can always be invoked. Not that I want governments deciding what is art and what isn't, but I don't find it a compelling reason to simply accept hateful/harmful content.

But read the post you were responding to. I didn't say 'its art' confers magical protection. I said 'its art' is different from 'its a knife'. A knife can directly kill a person through physical violence. Concerns about the impact of art are less direct and more unclear. That was my point. Granted you and I probably do sit on different sides of the fence in terms of how much room we grant to art to take risks and to not be censored (or perhaps I am wrong on that assumption).

 

[Charlaquin]

Now that's something I find even more objectionable. (A different concept from offensive, to underline that point.) Again, there might be sub-cultures whose members identify themselves by their queerness, as they do their interactions and creative work.
But when I make pancakes, they don't become queer pancakes. And if I create a campaign setting for a game, it doesn't become a queer campaign setting.

And when a gamer makes pancakes they don’t become gamer pancakes, but gamer culture still absolutely exists. A culture is a collection of customs, social norms, lexicon, art, and experiences, shared among a group of people with a common identity. We queer folk absolutely have that.

But not to trample pointlessly long on semantics, the issue I am seeing is that it doesn't hold water if anyone says something like "I am X and I don't like this" and that is taken to mean "this is hostile to X people". Which is how I see a lot of discourse about inclusiveness and hostility taking place.

Obviously no group is a monolith. That doesn’t mean groups can’t have shared concerns. Sure, one queer individual not liking something doesn’t automatically make that thing hostile towards queer people. But nor does one queer individual being fine with something make that thing not hostile towards queer people generally. (Using queer for the example here because it’s a group we both belong to.)

 

[MGibster]

My point was that the "but it's art" defense has limited usefulness, simply because it can always be invoked. Not that I want governments deciding what is art and what isn't, but I don't find it a compelling reason to simply accept hateful/harmful content.

"But it causes harm" also has limited usefulness. It's what people say when they want to remove something they find offensive, like D&D in the 1980s for example. I don't find "it causes harm" to necessarily be a compelling reason to stop doing something. I might not agree that it causes harm.

 

[MGibster]

And when a gamer makes pancakes they don’t become gamer pancakes, but gamer culture still absolutely exists. A culture is a collection of customs, social norms, lexicon, art, and experiences, shared among a group of people with a common identity. We queer folk absolutely have that.

You were saying what about queer pancakes? I'm pretty sure you can order them at Cracker Barrel. Okay, probably not Cracker Barrel.

 

[HammerMan]

Harm can be difficult to measure but thankfully we generally don't need to weigh it, check its volume, or put it through a spectrometer. While it would be nice if people could be more specific about how something is harmful, I don't really feel the need to dwell on how harmful something might be. Nor do I find it useful to compare it to cutting oneself with a knife.

I can see where you are coming from. But protecting people from paper cuts and protecting them from radiation (both can cause physical harm) take diffrent priorities.

Protecting someone form dealing with a serious trauma phobia something like PTSD HAS to take priority over 'that made me feel weird for a second"

In another thread someone put an example how how they would (in graphic detail) describe intimdating someone. I told them that would not be welcome at my table it would get red cared by multi players (at least 2 if not the whole table). It would also derail the nights game most likely while we make sure those players did not have panic attacks. (yes it was THAT graphic).
I also know that my friend becky is getting annoyed at my overuse of Hobgoblins... she will roll her eyes as soon as I mention them (even though they are a large kingdom in the area of the world they are in.) No one is red carding my "3 hobgoblins approach you"

I don't think that I would describe the reaction to my overused monsters (or the magic item my players always say ends campaigns) as causeing serius harm... but both are mild annoyances (noticably) and I stear away from them most times... on the other hand the graphics description is causeing SERIUS HARM at my table...