D&D 5E Dark Sun, problematic content, and 5E…

[Justice and Rule]

Right?

Murder your way from zero to hero. Perfect.

How about XP for loot instead of murder? Nah. That’s boring.

Slaughter thousands in a war. Perfect.

How about we befriend some of these intelligent beings and try to work out our differences? Snooze.

Invade other people’s homes, kill them, and take their land. Perfect.

Here’s a setting where you fight slavers. How dare you.

Murder happens in the real world. Violence happens in the real world. War happens in the real world. And those are all perfectly acceptable as regular parts of play.

It’s almost like you have to play at a specific frequency of evil for it to be socially acceptable. Any less evil and it’s wrong. Any more evil and it’s wrong. So weird.

I mean, the distinction is easy to make because we have socially-approved instances where violence is justified. Wars kill thousands, but we still find heroes in them. Assault is bad, but self-defense is justified and we have superheroes who take justice into their own hand for the good of people and society. We can put our PCs into those situations where we believe they are justified in the same ways, that they are making decisions regarding violence that wouldn't fly in regular society, but in this case makes them heroes.

There's really no analog to certain things like, say, chattel slavery. At least, none that I can think of.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I mean, the distinction is easy to make because we have socially-approved instances where violence is justified. Wars kill thousands, but we still find heroes in them. Assault is bad, but self-defense is justified and we have superheroes who take justice into their own hand for the good of people and society. We can put our PCs into those situations where we believe they are justified in the same ways, that they are making decisions regarding violence that wouldn't fly in regular society, but in this case makes them heroes.

There's really no analog to certain things like, say, chattel slavery. At least, none that I can think of.

But one should be able to use that justified violence to stop the slavery. Not just never mention slavery in the game again.

 

[humble minion]

I mean, the distinction is easy to make because we have socially-approved instances where violence is justified. Wars kill thousands, but we still find heroes in them. Assault is bad, but self-defense is justified and we have superheroes who take justice into their own hand for the good of people and society. We can put our PCs into those situations where we believe they are justified in the same ways, that they are making decisions regarding violence that wouldn't fly in regular society, but in this case makes them heroes.

There's really no analog to certain things like, say, chattel slavery. At least, none that I can think of.

I'm trying to remember how much blowback Tarantino got about his treatment of the issue in Django Unchained. It's the nearest equivalent I can come up with in recent entertainment media to how DS historically treated slavery.

Mind you, Tarantino is about as far as you can get from my idea of the moral compass on this sort of thing, but I'm more thinking of what the public response was like.

 

[overgeeked]

I mean, the distinction is easy to make because we have socially-approved instances where violence is justified. Wars kill thousands, but we still find heroes in them.

All depends on which side you’re on. Our heroes are their villains and vice versa.

Assault is bad, but self-defense is justified

Legally, yes. And morally by many, but not all.

and we have superheroes who take justice into their own hand for the good of people and society.

Stick with the real world.

We can put our PCs into those situations where we believe they are justified in the same ways, that they are making decisions regarding violence that wouldn't fly in regular society, but in this case makes them heroes.

Right. Like fighting against slavery. But apparently not.

There's really no analog to certain things like, say, chattel slavery. At least, none that I can think of.

While not chattel slavery the US uses inmates as de facto slave labor every day. That is almost always justified as “paying one’s debt to society.”

Now apply that to D&D. Nope. No can do. That’s a line too far.

 

[Irlo]

Extreme violence is acceptable.

Slavery etc etc is not.


What a weird society we are.

I won't suggest that we're not a weird society. But ... .

How I regard violence as presented in a game is complicated. For me, some modes of violence are absolutely not appropriate for my games (realistic torture, domestic violence, and sexual assault, as examples). Brutal sword fights, being eaten alive by ghouls, being blasted by dragon fire ... that all works for me. I don't really care that I may be viewed as inconsistent in my acceptance of these things. It's a gut reaction based on my own experiences and what I want in my fantasy games. What I want in my games is different than what I want in my fiction.

It's not weird at all to me that depictions of institutional slavery in a game setting would evoke the same feelings in others.

 

[Emoshin]

I mean, the distinction is easy to make because we have socially-approved instances where violence is justified. Wars kill thousands, but we still find heroes in them. Assault is bad, but self-defense is justified and we have superheroes who take justice into their own hand for the good of people and society. We can put our PCs into those situations where we believe they are justified in the same ways, that they are making decisions regarding violence that wouldn't fly in regular society, but in this case makes them heroes.

I think there has to be something more to it.

Gratuitous violence is pretty common across many mediums. When translated to real-life, it's not justified.

Like the long car chases, for example. How many off-screen deaths on TV and movies have there been because the "good guys" recklessly chased the "bad guy" and how many people died in car crashes in those scenes? And we don't really want to know either. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

There is definitely a glorification of violence in our society that is not justified if were translated to real-life, but has escaped the "problematic" label.

BTW, I'm not still not condoning slavery in modern fantasy, but just saying the gratuitous violence is operating at a different level of some sort.

 

[Justice and Rule]

But one should be able to use that justified violence to stop the slavery. Not just never mention slavery in the game again.

But that's not always the case, and you're not always stopping it. There's nothing to stop you in participating in it, or simply ignoring it. There's also the idea of reducing the idea and pain of slavery to an adventure hook, but that's probably not for this conversation right now.

I'm trying to remember how much blowback Tarantino got about his treatment of the issue in Django Unchained. It's the nearest equivalent I can come up with in recent entertainment media to how DS historically treated slavery.

Mind you, Tarantino is about as far as you can get from my idea of the moral compass on this sort of thing, but I'm more thinking of what the public response was like.

I dunno if that would be my first read. Not sure if it's controversial for the same reasons, either, but I'd really have to think about this.

I think there has to be something more to it.

Gratuitous violence is pretty common across many mediums. When translated to real-life, it's not justified.

Like the long car chases, for example. How many off-screen deaths on TV and movies have there been because the "good guys" recklessly chased the "bad guy" and how many people died in car crashes in those scenes? And we don't really want to know either. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

There is definitely a glorification of violence in our society that is not justified if were translated to real-life, but has escaped the "problematic" label.

BTW, I'm not still not condoning slavery in modern fantasy, but just saying the gratuitous violence is operating at a different level of some sort.

I really think it's kind of that simple: we've glorified violence that we find to be justified. That has gotten more and more ridiculous as films have gotten the ability to make more and more ridiculous things, but I think it comes from the lionization of certain kinds of violence, perhaps combined with modern society sometimes making us feel helpless.

 

[Emoshin]

I really think it's kind of that simple: we've glorified violence that we find to be justified. That has gotten more and more ridiculous as films have gotten the ability to make more and more ridiculous things, but I think it comes from the lionization of certain kinds of violence, perhaps combined with modern society sometimes making us feel helpless.

Perhaps we suspend out disbelief that the fictional "good guy" is not guilty of multiple counts of involuntary manslaughter because we are addicted to the adrenaline rush of all that violence and blood and things going smashy-smashy. So believe the fantasy that he's still a good guy despite being utterly reckless with innocent lives.

But some of us cannot suspend out disbelief that fictional slavery is ok, because there is no such adrenaline rush as a reward.

Do you think it could be something like that?

 

[overgeeked]

But that's not always the case, and you're not always stopping it. There's nothing to stop you in participating in it, or simply ignoring it.

We’re back to this? There’s nothing stopping that from happening now. Having it in an official setting won’t change that. And it’s weird to want to prevent people from having a choice because they might use that choice in a way you don’t like.

There's also the idea of reducing the idea and pain of slavery to an adventure hook, but that's probably not for this conversation right now.

Why not bring it up? We do exactly the same by reducing the pain of murder, violence, war, famine, colonization, on and on and on…all for plot hooks.

I really think it's kind of that simple: we've glorified violence that we find to be justified.

And what if we’re wrong?

That has gotten more and more ridiculous as films have gotten the ability to make more and more ridiculous things, but I think it comes from the lionization of certain kinds of violence, perhaps combined with modern society sometimes making us feel helpless.

So combine the two and indulge in the power fantasy of fixing a clearly broken and evil society by engaging in some of the old ultra-violence…directed at slavers.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Yeah. It was surreal when that particular "firestorm" hit. Like, lol. Clearly some people haven't been paying attention.

I’ve seen people complain about modern Star Trek going “woke.”