WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Micah Sweet]

No one is forcing you to remove it. They are choosing not to use it in OFFICIAL MATERIAL. WotC is choosing not to use such material in its game, but they don't care what you do with it at your table. Nobody cares what you do at your table. Have Rapey McSlaver be your main bad-guy. But don't expect that WotC is going to put out a villain like that in one of their APs.

I just said I likely wouldn't use SA in my game (although slavery as a concept is certainly possible), so your hyperbole is unwarranted.

 

[Zardnaar]

No one is forcing you to remove it. They are choosing not to use it in OFFICIAL MATERIAL. WotC is choosing not to use such material in its game, but they don't care what you do with it at your table. Nobody cares what you do at your table. Have Rapey McSlaver be your main bad-guy. But don't expect that WotC is going to put out a villain like that in one of their APs.

That's not what is involved here. Some are making absolute statements which is where the pushback is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You make me wonder if they'll edit Lost Mine of Phandelver at some point. There's a room in the Redbrand hideout labeled "Slave Pens" which has 3 villagers being held until they can be sold into slavery.

Can't have that now, can we?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Except that we are talking about it being an on-screen event because it's actually something that really happens to actual PCs in-game.

If you (meaning game company writers) say "the Evil Horde is raping their way across the countryside" as a way to show they're evil, then you're giving the DM carte blanche to have them rape their way across the PCs and friendly NPCs as well. It would be you (still meaning game company writers) say that this is fully OK to have at the table.

I've spoken to many, many people (during several different editions, both online and in person) who say that D&D's emphasis on combat rules proves that WotC expects PCs to only ever fight their way through situations, and exploration and social activities are to be put to the side. These are the people who would take the Evil Horde raping their way across the countryside as full permission.

And, as others have pointed out, there are many, many ways to show how evil the Evil Horde is having them also be rapists.

So we're protecting against bad actors? Is that what this is about?

 

[Alzrius]

Except that we are talking about it being an on-screen event because it's actually something that really happens to actual PCs in-game.

No, we're not talking about it being an on-screen event. No one, at least in this conversation, wants that. Unless you're suggesting that allowing for its inclusion as an element at all means that it will necessarily happen on-screen, and potentially to a PC, then what you're saying here doesn't follow at all.

The idea that any acknowledgment of the topic gives the DM carte blanche to ignore session zero, ignore everyone's preferences for how comfortable they are with this topic, and ignore common sense is, quite frankly, ridiculous. Sure, such a thing happens, but that's not the problem of the material; it's a problem of the people using it as an excuse. Any GM who'd do that is a problem in-and-of themselves, not because they were somehow given "permission" to act in such a manner. It's right up there with saying that making the gods into GM-controlled NPCs gives them carte blanche to "rocks fall, everyone dies" any PC who doesn't follow their railroad.

What you're describing isn't a problem of any particular topic; it's problem individuals, and you can't somehow rein them in by writing off topics that you think they'd somehow abuse. I'm fairly sure any DM that would do such a thing already knows what sexual assault is and uses it in their games as they like, "carte blanche" or no.

 

[Remathilis]

I just said I likely wouldn't use SA in my game (although slavery as a concept is certainly possible), so your hyperbole is unwarranted.

So, then you don't really have a dog in this fight. If I go to McDonalds and never order the Chicken Sandwich, do I really have cause to complain if they take it off the menu?

 

[Velderan]

Can't have that now, can we?

I honestly don't know what WotC would do. The Hadozee controversy wasn't solely about the slave portion of their background, so it's not entirely clear what their stance is on it being a topic in games. Have there been any other 5e releases that reference it?

Personally? I don't see it as being a huge issue if you're not presenting it in a way that draws direct parallels to real history (e.g. all people of this race are automatically slaves) but that's a topic that's been discussed at session 0s and I know how people at the different tables I've played at have felt. Others may rightly feel differently and that's probably the line WotC has to walk.

 

[Xamnam]

As someone who has generally been reading but not participating in this thread, I think most of the participants here are not as far apart in what they actually want to happen as they are sounding to each other / reading the other side as being.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I feel like a filter shouldn't be needed for not so many to be so pressed to include that kind of thing at literally every turn.

It is super weird that so many people are in love with the trope. Like how Ultimate Marvel went all in on Cannibalism or DC with cutting off specifically the left arm. Genuinely unsettling to see so many ardent defenses for putting it everywhere.

The lack of gatekeepers are why we have all of this, though.

Most of these folks didn't spend years working on writing in college and writing (and reading) all of the most tropey stuff in creative writing classes and going "ooh, maybe I should cool it with some of this stuff and do something a little different," and then have all the editors and agents and publishers telling them "nope, you still have too much tropey stuff in your work, and also, you don't understand subject/verb agreement."

So you get a lot of the early writing issues in this firehose of content now.

HOWEVER, you also get to hear from writers and other creatives you wouldn't hear from for other reasons. It's not a coincidence that we have more women, more LGBT, more folks of color writing than ever before. They weren't being held back because the quality of their writing was worse (it's the same as everyone else's, Sturgeon's Law and all that), it's because enough of the gatekeepers were bringing their other prejudices to bear.

Yeah, there's a lot of bad stuff out there, and it makes me wince. But I think the trade-off is worth it.

(An ironically white, straight cis-gendered guy we got out of it: Andy Weir, author of The Martian, which I will go out on a limb and say that a lot of people here liked.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As backstory that is vaguely referenced or the actual SA is described in a scene as actively happening in the present?

Using GoT/HotD as an example, I can think of 4 scenes in both show's history that depict SA in one form or another:
1. The Dothraki raping women in a village they raided.
2. Sansa being raped by Ramsay Bolton on their wedding night.
3. Cersei being raped by Jaime after Joffrey died.
4. In HotD, they referenced Aegon Targaryen raping a servant.

Were any of those needed to sell that the attacker was a bad person? The dothraki were murdering unarmed civilians, we already know they're not nice. For Ramsay, Jaime, and Aegon, were the writers really overly concerned they were too likeable before those scenes and the SA was what put them over the top? I know Jaime is kind of a weird case because they teased a redemption arc with him before he ran back to Cersei in the end, but he was clearly not a nice person before having that scene with Cersei so it wasn't needed imo.

I think there's also ways to do it. Doing it off screen -- Aegon being a creep vs. seeing Sansa and Cersei being raped -- is preferable.

But yes, it's largely unnecessary. But then, HBO also thought that exposition needed topless prostitutes to make people pay attention, so it's not exactly pulling out all the stops, writing-wise.